^«Y  eF  P<?l/VC?^ 


BV  4211  .F677  1907 
Forsyth,  Peter  Taylor,  1848- 

Positive  preaching  and 
modern  mind 


POSITIVE  PREACH 
AND    MODERN    MIND 


BY 


P.    T.    FORSYTH 

M.A.,  D.D 


THE  LYMAN  BEECHER  LECTURES  ON 
PREACHING,  YALE   UNIVERSITY,   1907 


A.  C.   ARMSTRONG   &   SON 

NEW  YORK 
1907 


T^  dyairrjaavTi  fie  koI  TrapaSoprt  kavrov 
virep   e/xoO 


PREFACE 

May  I  remind  those  who  honour  me  by  looking 
into  this  book  that  it  consists  of  lectures,  and  that 
I  have  been  somewhat  careful  not  to  change  that 
form  in  print.  Also,  as  the  audience  consisted 
chiefly  of  men  preparing  for  the  Ministry,  it  was 
inevitable  that  I  should  speak  chiefly  ad  clerum. 
I  trust  this  may  help  to  excuse  a  shade  of  intimacy 
that  might  not  befit  address  to  a  wider  public, 
possibly  something  of  a  pulpit  style  at  times,  and 
a  few  repetitions,  I  need  hardly  add  that  the 
lectures  were  abbreviated  in  delivery. 

I  should  also  like  to  mention  that  as  the  lectures 
were  given  to  a  post-graduate  audience  I  have  taken 
more  for  granted  in  places  than  if  I  had  been  speaking 
to  a  more  general  assembly.  While  I  am  grateful 
for  any  who  will  listen  to  me,  I  confess  I  have  kept 
in  view  rather  students  than  mere  readers — those 
who  do  not  resent  an  unfamiUar  word,  who  are 
attracted  rather  than  impatient  towards  a  dark  say- 
ing, who  find  the  hard  texts  the  mighty  ones,  and 


viii  Preface 

who  do  not  grudge  stopping  the  carriage  to  examine 
a  mysterious  cave  or  to  consider  a  great  prospect. 

It  has  cost  the  writer  much  to  find  his  way  so 
far.  And  he  has  yet  a  long  way  to  go.  But  he 
beheves  he  has  found  the  true  and  magnetic  North. 
And  a  voice  is  in  his  ears,  /cat  <tv  ttotc  eTriarpeyp-a'; 
(TT'qpiaov  rov'i  a8e\4>ov<;  aov.  This  voice  he  would 
obey — humbly  to  it,  respectfully  to  his  brethren. 
How  grateful  he  is  to  the  great  university  of  Yale 
for  giving  him  such  an  opportunity  of  service,  and 
providing  him  with  a  world-pulpit  in  such  an 
apostoHc  succession  as  his  predecessors  make. 

I  have  to  thank  my  colleague.  Rev.  Prof.  Bennett, 
D.D.,  Litt.  D.,  for  valuable  assistance  with  proofs, 
and  my  pupil,  Mr.  Sydney  Cave,  M.A.,  B.D.,  for 
the  table  of  contents. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


THE  PREACHER  AND  HIS  CHARTER. 

The  fundamental  importance  of  preaching  for  Christianity 
— God's  chief  gift  not  the  Church  and  the  Sacraments  but 
the  Word — ^The  Bible  as  the  world's  greatest  sermon — Its 
unity  that  of  the  history  of  redemption — To  what  extent  is 
the  Bible  a  record  of  God's  word  ? — The  nature  of  its  in- 
spiration and  infallibility — Its  final  criticism  not  the  higher 
rationaUsra  but  the  highest  grace — The  Holy  Spirit  and  the 
historic  Christ — The  need  of  contextual  preaching — ^The 
true  context  of  the  Bible  is  the  race's  consciousness  of  sin — 
The  difficulty  due  to  the  general  disuse  of  the  Bible — The 
Bible  as  the  preacher's  Enchiridion. 


II 

THE   AUTHORITY   OF   THE   PREACHER         .       41 

The  urgent  modem  need  of  an  Authority — ^The  authority 

of  the  Pulpit   due    to   the    divine    Person   it    proclaims — 

Our  authority  must  be  objective  and  inward — This  inward 

authority  not  the  natural   conscience,    whether   crude   or 

ix 


Contents 


PAGE 


75 


refined — Our  supreme  need  of  redemption — The  final  au- 
thority in  Christianity  that  of  a  Redeemer  ;  so  the  author- 
ity of  the  pulpit  is  evangelical — It  is  God  in  His  supreme 
saving  act  in  Christ's  Cross — Christ  so  to  be  preached  as  to 
be  the  Creator  of  faith,  the  absolute  Redeemer. 


Ill 

THE    PREACHER    AND     HIS   CHURCH;     OR, 
PREACHING   AS    WORSHIP 

The  modern  neglect  of  the  idea  of  the  Church — The 
Church  as  the  great  preacher  in  history — The  preacher's 
place  in  the  Church  not  sacerdotal  but  sacramental — A 
sermon  as  an  act  involving  the  real  presence  of  Christ — A 
preacher's  first  business  is  with  the  Church — His  work  in- 
-7  terpretive,  not  creative,  of  Revelation — The  preacher  as  the 
Church's  means  of  self-expression,  and  as  the  mandatory  of 
the  great  Church  for  the  individual  Church  and  for  th« 
world — The  corresponding  responsibility  of  the  preacher 
and  his  need  for  sober  knowledge — Some  consequences  in 
regard  to  (i)  the  preacher's  private  views,  (2)  questions  of 
Biblical  Criticism,  (3)  the  demand  for  short  sermons. 


IV 
THE    PREACHER    AND    THE    AGE  .  .  .113 

The  relation  of  the  preacher's  message  to  the  mental 
vernacular  of  his  time — Two  observations  thereon:  (i)  In 
its  greatest  ages  the  Church  marked  by  an  attitude  of  de- 
tachment to  the  world ;  the  example  of  Gnosticism  ;  (2) 
x-^  oxir  creed  to  be  minimal  and  our  faith  maximal,  belief  to  be 
reduced  and  emphasis  redistributed — ^The  need  of  forcing  a 
crisis  of  the  will — The  old  Theologies  to  be  interpreted 
completely  and  with  sympathy — Reduction  not  Repristi- 
nation  necessary — The  casualness  of  the  Public — The  value 
of  pessimism  as  a  corrective — Ibsen — The  danger  of  a  false 
humanism — The  seventy  of  Christ. 


Contents  xi 

PAGE 
V 

THE   PREACHER   AND  RELIGIOUS  REALITY     i6i 

The  Reformation  not  to  be  regretted  nor  renounced,  but 
reformed  by  its  own  principle  of  faith  and  its  demand  for 
moral  reality — The  need  of  facing  as  fairly  as  the  Reformers 
the  moral,  social  and  political  situation, — the  supreme 
demand  to-day  is  for  spiritual  reality — The  three  diseases 
of  the  Church  and  their  cures:  (i)  Triviality,  demanding  ai 
new  note  of  greatness  in  our  creed;  (2)  uncertainty,  de-\ 
manding  a  new  note  of  wrestling  and  reality  in  our  prayer  ; 
(3)  complacency,  demanding  a  new  note  of  judgment  in  our 
salvation — The  root  of  moral  reality,  personal  religion,  and 
social  security  only  to  be  found  in  the  consciousness  of 
guilt  produced  and  transcended  by  the  sense  of  vicarious 
redemption. 


VI 

PREACHING    POSITIVE    AND    LIBERAL  .      199 

Authority  the  need  of  the  hour — The  preacher's  authority 
being  the  objective  personal  content  of  faith,  his  first  need  a 
positive  theology — ^The  meaning  of  a  "  positive  theology  " — 
Its  irrepressible  adjustment  in  each  age — Its  vital  difference 
from  Liberalism  in  its  emphasis  on  historic  and  experienced 
grace  and  on  the  absoluteness  of  Christ — Creational  rather 
than  evolutionary — Its  norm  the  New  Testament  Gospel 
and  not  the  modern  mind — Its  adequacy  to  the  human 
tragedy — Its  emphasis  on  personality  and  sin — Its  inter- 
pretation of  Christ  by  incarnation,  not  by  immanence — The 
seriousness  of  the  issue  to-day. 

VII 
PREACHING    POSITIVE    AND    MODERN  .     247 

The  need  of  a  modernized  Theology  : — 

I.  Its  positive  doctrines  (i)  a  gospel  of  Jesus  the  Eternal 

Son  of  God  ;    (2)  a  Gospel  of  Jesus  the   Mediator  ;    (3)  a 

Gospel  of  Christ's  Resurrection. 


xii  Contents 

PAGE 

II.  Its  recognition  of  modern  principles,  (i)  The 
autonomy  of  the  individual ;  (2)  The  Social  Idea  ;  (3)  the 
development  of  personality  ;  (4)  the  distinction  between 
practical  and  theoretical  knowledge  ;  (5)  the  need  of  popu- 
larisation ;  (6)  the  principle  of  Evolution  ;  (7)  the  passion 
for  reality. 

III.  The  issue  not  really  critical  but  dogmatic — This 
illustrated  in  the  case  of  the  Bible  and  of  Christ. 

The  vital  need  throughout  of  an  experimental  foundation 
in  grace — A  hving,  positive  faith  in  a  historic  gospel. 

VIII 

THE    PREACHER    AND    MODERN    ETHIC         .     293 

The  modern  ethical  note — An  ethicized  Christianity  means 
a  more  positive  doctrine  of  the  Cross — The  moral  paradox 
of  God's  forgiveness — The  primacy  of  the  moral — The  ethi- 
cizing  of  religion  by  the  idea  of  the  holy — The  Cross  as  the 
consummation  of  holiness — Judgment  as  an  essential  factor 
in  God's  Holy  Love — The  analogy  of  Fatherhood  and  its 
danger — The  Cross  as  the  centre  of  the  Kingdom — So 
Christianity,  as  supremely  moral,  appeals  to  a  society  intent 
on  moral  righteousness — But  the  preacher  has  his  oppor- 
tunity also  in  the  moral  weakness  of  society. 

IX 
THE    MORAL    POIGNANCY    OF    THE    CROSS  .      339 

The  inadequacy  of  the  common  view  of  God's  benig- 
nant Fatherhood — Popularity  not  the  test  of  the  Gospel — 
The  complexity  of  the  soul's  situation — Sin  as  enmity  to  God 
— God's  love  brought  home  not  by  a  spectacle  but  by  a 
finished  universal  act — An  ethicized  Theology  must  em- 
phasize holiness — Christ  as  God  forgiving — The  need  of 
moral  mordancy,  of  iron  in  our  blood — The  Cross  not  a 
martyrdom  but  God's  decisive  and  creative  act — Christ  not 
•^■^  only  redeemed,  He  atoned — The  element  of  judgment, 
the  wrath  of  God — The  Atonement  to  God — This  aspect 
of  propitiation  essential  to  the  final  prospects  of  Christian- 
ity— Conclusion. 

EPILOGUE .371 


THE    PREACHER  AND    HIS 
CHARTER 


I 

The  Preacher    and   his   Charter 

It  is,  perhaps,  an  overbold  beginning,  but  I  will 
venture  to  say  that  with  its  preaching  Christianity 
stands  or  falls.  This  is  surely  so,  at  least  in  those 
sections  of  Christendom  which  rest  less  upon  the 
Church  than  upon  the  Bible.  Wherever  the  Bible 
has  the  primacy  which  is  given  it  in  Protestantism, 
there  preaching  is  the  most  distinctive  feature  of 
worship. 

But,  preaching  a  feature  of  worship !  I  will 
ask  leave  to  use  that  phrase  provisionally,  till, 
at  a  later  stage,  I  can  justify  the  place  of  preach- 
ing as  a  part  of  the  cultus,  and  not  a  mere 
appendix. 

Preaching  (I  have  said),  is  the  most  distinctive 
institution  in  Christianity.  It  is  quite  different 
from  oratory.  The  pulpit  is  another  place,  and 
another  kind  of  place,  from  the  platform.  Many 
succeed  in  the  one,  and  yet  are  failures  on  the  other. 
The  Christian  preacher  is  not  the  successor  of  the 
Greek  orator,  but  of  the  Hebrew  prophet.  The 
orator  comes  with  but  an  inspiration,  the  prophet 
comes  with  a  revelation.     In  so  far  as  the  preacher 


4   The   Preacher  and  his  Charter 

and  prophet  had  an  analogue  in  Greece  it  was  the 
dramatist,  with  his  urgent  sense  of  life's  guilty 
tragedy,  its  inevitable  ethic,  its  unseen  moral 
powers,  and  their  atoning  purifying  note.  More- 
over, where  you  have  the  passion  for  oratory  you 
are  not  unlikely  to  have  an  impaired  style  and 
standard  of  preaching.  Where  your  object  is 
to  secure  your  audience,  rather  than  your  Gospel, 
preaching  is  sure  to  suffer.  I  will  not  speak  of 
the  oratory  which  is  but  rhetoric,  tickling  the 
audience.  I  will  take  both  at  their  best.  It  is 
one  thing  to  have  to  rouse  or  persuade  people  to 
do  something,  to  put  themselves  into  something  ; 
it  is  another  to  have  to  induce  them  to  trust  some- 
body and  renounce  themselves  for  him.  The  one 
is  the  political  region  of  work,  the  other  is  the 
religious  region  of  faith.  And  wherever  a  people 
is  swallowed  up  in  politics,  the  preacher  is  apt  to 
be  neglected ;  unless  he  imperil  his  preaching  by 
adjusting  himself  to  political  or  social  methods  of 
address.  The  orator,  speaking  generally,  has  for 
his  business  to  make  real  and  urgent  the  present 
world  and  its  crises,  the  preacher  a  world  unseen, 
and  the  whole  crisis  of  the  two  worlds.  The 
present  world  of  the  orator  may  be  the  world  of 
action,  or  of  art.  He  may  speak  of  affairs,  of  nature, 
or  of  imagination.  In  the  pulpit  he  may  be  what 
is  called  a  practical  preacher,  or  a  poet-preacher. 
But  the  only  business  of  the  apostohc  preacher 
is  to  make  men  practically  realize  a  world  unseen 
and  spiritual ;    he  has  to  rouse  them  not  against 


The  Preacher  and  his  Charter    5 

a  common  enemy  but  against  their  common  selves  ; 
not  against  natural  obstacles  but  against  spiritual 
foes  ;  and  he  has  to  call  out  not  natural  resources 
but  supernatural  aids.  Indeed,  he  has  to  tell 
men  that  their  natural  resources  are  so  inadequate 
for  the  last  purposes  of  life  and  its  worst  foes 
that  they  need  from  the  supernatural  much  more 
than  aid.  They  need  deliverance,  not  a  helper 
merely  but  a  Saviour.  The  note  of  the  preacher 
is  the  Gospel  of  a  Saviour.  The  orator  stirs  men 
to  rally,  the  preacher  invites  them  to  be  redeemed. 
Demosthenes  fires  his  audience  to  attack  Phihp 
straightway  ;  Paul  stirs  them  to  die  and  rise  with 
Christ.  The  orator,  at  most,  may  urge  men  to 
love  their  brother,  the  preacher  beseeches  them 
first  to  be  reconciled  to  their  Father.  With 
preaching  Christianity  stands  or  falls  because  it 
is  the  declaration  of  a  Gospel.  Nay  more — far 
more — it  is  the  Gospel  prolonging  and  declaring 
itself. 


I  am  going  on  the  assumption  that  the  gift  to 
men  in  Christianity  is  the  Gospel  deed  of  God's 
grace  in  the  shape  of  forgiveness,  redemption, 
regeneration.  Im  Anfang  war  die  That.  But  I 
should  perhaps  define  terms. 

By  grace  is  not  here  meant  either  God's  general 
benignity,  or  His  particular  kindness  to  our  failure 
or  pity  for  our  pain.  I  mean  His  undeserved  and 
Unbought  pardon  and  redemption  of  us  in  the  face 


6     The  Preacher  and  his  Charter 

of  our  sin,  in  the  face  of  the  world-sin,  under 
such  moral  conditions  as  are  prescribed  by  His 
revelation  of  His  holy  love  in  Jesus  Christ  and 
Him  crucified. 

And  by  the  Gospel  of  this  grace  I  would  especially 
urge  that  there  is  meant  not  a  statement,  nor  a 
doctrine,  nor  a  scheme,  on  man's  side  ;  nor  an  offer, 
a  promise,  or  a  book,  on  God's  side.  It  is  an  act 
and  a  power :  it  is  God's  act  of  redemption  before 
it  is  man's  message  of  it.  It  is  an  eternal,  perennial 
act  of  God  in  Christ,  repeating  itself  within  each 
declaration  of  it.  Only  as  a  Gospel  done  by  God  is 
it  a  Gospel  spoken  by  man.  It  is  a  revelation  only 
because  it  was  first  of  all  a  reconciliation.  It  was 
a  work  that  redeemed  us  into  the  power  of  under- 
standing its  own  word.  It  is  an  objective  power, 
a  historic  act  and  perennial  energy  of  the  holy 
love  of  God  in  Christ ;  decisive  for  humanity  in 
time  and  eternity ;  and  altering  for  ever  the 
whole  relation  of  the  soul  to  God,  as  it  may  be 
rejected  or  believed.  The  gift  of  God's  grace  was, 
and  is.  His  work  of  Gospel.  And  it  is  this  act 
that  is  prolonged  in  the  word  of  the  preacher, 
and    not     merely     proclaimed.       The     great,     the 

1  fundamental,   sacrament   is  the  Sacrament   of   the 

Vword. 

What  I  say  will  not  hold  good  if  the  chief  gift 

to   the   world   is   the   Church   and   its   sacraments 

> 

instead  of  the  work  and  its  word.  Wherever  you 
have  the  ritual  sacraments  to  the  front  the 
preacher   is    to    the    rear,  if    he    is    there    at    all. 


The  Preacher  and  his  Charter     7 

In  Catholicism  worship  is  complete  without  a 
sermon  ;  and  the  education  of  the  minister  suffers 
accordingly.  So,  conversely,  if  the  preacher  is 
belittled  the  priest  is  enhanced.  If  you  put 
back  the  pulpit,  by  the  same  act  you  put  for- 
ward the  altar.  The  whole  of  Christian  history 
is  a  struggle  between  the  apostle,  i.e.  the 
preacher,  and  the  priest.  The  first  Apostles 
were  neither  priests  nor  bishops.  They  were 
preachers,  missionaries,  heralds  of  the  Cross,  and 
agents  of  the  Gospel.  The  apostolic  succession  is 
the  evangelical.  It  is  with  the  preachers  of  the 
Word,  and  not  with  the  priestly  operators  of  the 
work,  or  with  its  episcopal  organisers.  Our  churche  ^ 
are  stone  pulpits  rather  than  shrines.  The  sacra- 
ment which  gives  value  to  all  other  sacraments 
is   the  Sacrament  of  the  living  Word. 

I  note  that  the  Catholic  revival  of  last  century 
is  coincident  with  complaints  elsewhere  of  the 
decay  of  preaching.  And  if  this  decay  is  not 
in  the  preaching  itself,  there  is  no  doubt  of  the 
fact  in  regard  to  the  pulpit's  estimate  and  influence 
with  the  public.  Even  if  the  churches  are  no  less 
full  than  before,  the  people  who  are  there  are  much 
less  amenable  to  the  preached  Word,  and  more 
fatally  urgent  for  its  brevity. 

This  coincides  with  the  Catholic  revival  on 
the  one  hand,  as  I  say,  and  with  something  to 
which  I  have  not  yet  referred,  on  the  other — I 
mean  the  decay  among  our  churches  of  the  personal 
use    of    the    Bible.     Preaching    can    only  flourish 


1 


8   I'he  Preacher  and  his  Charter 

where  there  is  more  than  a  formal  respect  for  the 
Bible  as  distinct  from  the  Church,  namely,  an  active 
respect,  an  assiduous  personal  use  of  it,  especially 
by  the  preacher.  But  to  this  point  I  shall  have  to 
recur. 

The  Bible  is  still  the  preacher's  starting-point, 
even  if  it  were  not  his  living  source.  It  is  still  the 
usual  custom  for  him  to  take  a  text.  If  he  but 
preach  some  happy  thoughts,  fancies,  or  philosophies 
of  his  own,  he  takes  a  text  for  a  motto.  It  was 
not  always  so  ;  but  since  it  became  so  it  is  a  custom 
that  is  fixed.  And  this  from  no  mere  conservatism. 
The  custom  received  ready,  nay  inevitable,  con- 
firmation from  the  Reformers.  It  corresponded 
to  the  place  they  gave  the  Bible  over  the  Church, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  individual  on  the  other. 
It  is  the  outward  sign  of  the  objectivity  of  our 
religion,  its  positivity,  its  quality  as  something 
given  to  our  hand.  Even  when  we  need  less 
protection  against  the  Church,  we  still  need  it 
against  the  individual,  and  often  against  the 
preacher.  We  need  to  be  defended  from  his 
subjectivity,  his  excursions,  his  monotony,  his 
limitations.  We  need,  moreover,  to  protect  him 
from  the  peril  of  preaching  himself,  or  his  age. 
We  must  all  preach  to  our  age,  but  woe  to  us  if  it  is 
our  age  we  preach,  and  only  hold  up  the  mirror  to 
the  time. 

And  not  only  so,  not  only  do  we  adhere  to  texts, 
but  there  is  a  growing  desire  for  expository  preaching 
— for  a  long  text,  and  the  elucidation  of  a  passage. 


The  Preacher  and  his  Charter     9 

The  public  soon  grow  weary  of  topical  preaching 
alone,  or  newspaper  preaching,  in  which  the  week's 
events   supply   the   text   and   the    Bible   only   an 
opening   quotation.     And    the    new   scholarship    is 
making  the  Bible  a  new  book,  a  new  pulpit  for  the 
old  Word,  a  new  golden  candlestick  for  the  old  light. 
Preachers  are  inspired  by  the  historic  freshness  of 
it,  as  the  public  are  interested  by  its  new  realism. 
It  is  a  great  recent  discovery  that  the  New  Testament 
was   written  in  the   actual  business  and  colloquial 
Greek  of  the  day.     And  less  than  ever  is  the  textual 
style  of  preaching  like  to  die,  or  the  Bible  to  cease 
to  be  the  capital  of  the  pulpit.     Preaching  has  a 
connexion  with  the  Bible  which  it  has  with  no  other 
book.     For  the  Bible  is  the  book  of  that  Christian 
community    whose    organ    the    preacher   is.     Like 
the   preacher,   it   has  a  living  connexion  with  the 
community.     Other  books  he  uses,  but  on  this  he 
lives  his  corporate  life.     It  is  what  integrates  him 
into  the  Church   of  all  ages.     Preachers  may,  for 
the   sake   of  change,   devote   their  expositions   on 
occasion  to    Tennyson,  Browning,  or  Shakespeare. 
They    may     extract     Christianity    from    modem 
art,  or   from   social    phenomena.     They    may    do 
so    in    order    to    lay    themselves    alongside    the 
modem  mind.     But  they  will  be  obliged  to  come 
back    to    the    Bible     for    their    charter,    if   they 
remain    evangehcal    at    all.     If  they  cease   to   be 
that,  of  course,  they  may  be  driven  anywhere  and 
tossed. 


lo   The  Preacher  and  his  Charter 

§ 

But  the  great  reason  why  the  preacher  must 
return  continually  to  the  Bible  is  that  the  Bible 
is  the  greatest  sermon  in  the  world.  Above  every 
other  function  of  it  the  Bible  is  a  sermon,  a  K^pvy/xa^ 
a  preachment.  It  is  the  preacher's  book  because 
it  is  the  preaching  book.  It  is  still  a  book  with  an 
organic  unity  of  idea  and  purpose.  I  admit  all  the 
truth  intended  when  the  Bible  is  called  a  library, 
and  part  of  it  a  national  library.  It  was  quite 
needful  that  that  fact  should  be  strongly  urged  on  us. 
But  when  we  have  recognized  the  Bible  as  the  litera- 
ture of  a  nation,  and  subject  to  its  literary  and  his- 
torical conditions,  we  soon  recognize  that  that  nation 
had  a  providential  function.  It  was  the  people 
of  the  Word.  It  arose  at  God's  hands  to  be  the 
preacher  among  the  nations — with  the  preacher's 
perishableness,  but  also  the  preacher's  immortality, 
with  the  fugitiveness  of  the  preacher,  but  with  the 
perpetuity  of  his  message.  And  this  message  is 
one,  definite,  and  positive.  It  runs  through  the 
whole  literature  of  that  nation  (with  one  or  two 
exceptions,  like  Esther  or  the  Canticles,  which  do 
not  destroy  the  general  fact).  The  library  is  a 
unity  in  virtue  of  this  historic  message  and  pur- 
pose. It  is  not  nationalist.  It  is  not  a  history 
of  Israel,  but  it  is  a  history  of  redemption.  It 
is  not  the  history  of  an  idea,  but  of  a  long 
divine  act.  Its  unity  is  a  dramatic  unity  of 
action,   rather    than    an  aesthetic    unity  of  struc- 


The  Preacher  and  his  Charter    1 1 

ture.  It  is  a  living  evolving  unity,  in  a  great 
historic  crescendo.  It  does  not  exist  like  a  library 
in  detached  departments.  It  has  an  organic 
and  waxing  continuity.  It  is  after  all  a  book.  It 
is  a  library,  but  it  is  still  more  a  canon.  You  may 
regard  it  from  some  points  as  the  crown  of 
literature,  for  it  contains  both  the  question  and 
the  answer  on  which  all  great  literature  turns. 
It  is  the  book,  as  Christ  is  the  person,  where  the 
seeking  God  meets  and  saves  the  seeking  man. 

The  crown  of  literature  is  thus  a  collection  of 
sermons.  It  is  one  vast  sermon.  It  is  so  much  more 
than  literature,  because  it  is  not  merely  powerful ; 
it  is  power.  It  is  action,  history,  it  is  not  mere  nar- 
rative, comment,  embellishment  or  dilution.  It  makes 
history  more  than  it  is  made  by  history.  There 
is  no  product  of  history  which  has  done  so  much  to 
produce  history  as  the  Bible.  Surely  that  which 
had  in  it  so  much  of  the  future  had  also  in  it  more 
than  the  mere  past.     It  had  the  Creator. 

It  is  akin  to  the  press  on  one  side,  as  to  the 
pulpit  on  the  other.  Its  value  is  in  its  news  more 
than  in  its  style.  It  is  news  to  the  world  from 
foreign  parts — but,  remember,  from  foreign  parts 
unseen,  which  ought  not  to  have  been  so  foreign 
to  us  as  they  are.  And  it  is  akin  to  the  world  of 
action  more  than  the  world  of  sentiment.  It 
deals  more  with  men's  wills  than  with  their  taste, 
with  conscience  more  than  with  imagination. 
It  is  the  greater  literature  because  it  never  aimed 
at   being   literature,  but    at   preaching  something, 


12   The  Preacher  and  his  Charter 

doing  something,  or  getting  something  done.  It 
is  so  precious  for  the  preacher  because  it  is  so 
practical.  It  is  a  "  Thatpredigt."  It  is  history 
preaching. 

§ 

How  far  is  the  Bible  a  record?  It  has  been 
common  of  late  to  speak  of  the  Bible,  not  as 
God's  Word,  but  as  the  record  of  God's  Word.  The 
Word,  it  is  said,  is  the  living  Word,  Christ.  There 
is  much  truth  in  this  view  also.  It  is  another 
symptom  of  the  great  historical  movement  which  has 
passed  over  religion,  the  great  restoration  of  the 
person  of  Christ  to  its  place  in  Christianity.  It  is 
one  side  of  the  movement  which  sends  us  back  to 
the  historical  study  of  the  Bible,  as  the  Reformers 
wenf  back  to  its  grammar.  But  it  is  only  a  partial 
truth  after  all.  It  is  only  in  a  modified  sense  that 
we  can  speak  of  the  books  of  the  Bible  as  historical 
records.  They  are  not  records  in  the  strict  histor- 
ian's sense  of  archives.  They  are  not  documents 
of  the  first  value  for  scientific  history.  There  is 
hardly  a  book  of  the  Bible  that  is  a  document  in 
that  severe  sense.  And  certainly  the  object  of  the 
Bible  was  not  scientific  history,  as  we  know  that 
science.  Why  is  it  that  we  find  it  hard,  if  not 
impossible,  to  write  a  biography  of  Christ  ?  Because 
the  object  of  the  New  Testament  writers  was  not 
to  provide  biographical  material  but  evangelical 
testimony.  The  New  Testament  (the  Gospels 
even),  is  a  direct   transcript,   not  of    Christ,   but 


The  Preacher  and  his  Charter    i  3 

of  the  preaching  about  Christ,  of  the  effect 
produced  by  Christ  on  the  first  generation,  a 
transcript  of  the  faith  that  worshipped  Him.  It 
is  a  direct  record  not  of  Christ's  biography  but 
of  Christ's  Gospel,  that  is  to  say  of  Christ  neither 
as  dehneated,  nor  as  reconstructed,  nor  as  analysed, 
but  as  preached.  The  inmost  life  of  Christ  we  can 
never  reach.  We  cannot  reconstruct  the  nights 
of  prayer. 

Well,  is  this  not  to  say  that  the  first  value  of  the 
Bible  is  not  to  historical  science  but  to  evangelical 
faith,  not  to  the  historian  but  to  the  gospeller  ? 
The  Bible  is,  in  the  first  instance,  not  a  voucher 
but  a  preacher.  It  is  not  a  piece  of  evidence. 
The  Gospels  are  not  like  articles  in  the  dictionary  of 
National  Biography,  whose  first  object  is  accuracy, 
verified  at  every  point.  They  are  pamphlets,  in 
the  service  of  the  Church,  and  in  the  interest  of  the 
Word.  They  are  engrossed  with  Christ,  not  as  a 
fascinating  character,  but  as  the  Sacrament,  the 
Gospel,  to  us  of  the  active  grace  of  God.  The  only 
historical  Christ  they  let  us  see  is  not  a  great  figure 
Boswellised,  but  a  risen  eternal  Christ  preached,  a 
human  God  declared  by  His  worshippers.  They 
are  homiletical  biography,  not  psychological ;  they 
are  compiled  on  evangelical  rather  than  critical  prin- 
ciples. The  stories  told  are  but  a  trifling  selection, 
not  chosen  to  cast  light  on  the  motives  of  a  deep 
and  complex  character,  but  selected  entirely  from 
a  single  point  of  view — that  of  the  crucified,  risen, 
exalted,    preached    Saviour.     (See    p.    38.)     There 


14  The  Preacher  and  his  Charter 

is  not  an  idyllic  feature  in  them  that  is  not  imbedded 
in  the  great  doom,  and  sobered  by  the  supreme 
tragedy  whose  conquest  made  the  Church.  It  is  the 
Saviour  bom  to  die  that  is  the  burthen  of  the  New 
Testament ;  it  is  the  Redeemer,  not  the  Messiah, 
not  the  champion  of  humanity,  not  the  spiritual 
hero,  not  the  greatest  of  the  prophets,  not  the 
exquisite  saint.  The  history  is  history  with  a 
purpose,  history  unto  salvation,  history  unto 
edification,  history  made  preacher,  history  whose 
object  is  to  create  not  an  opinion  on  our  part  but  a 
determination.  The  story  is  on  a  theme.  It  is 
there  for  the  Gospel.  It  is  inferior  as  art,  but  it 
is  mighty  as  action.  It  is  a  crisis  of  spiritual 
action.  It  is  preaching,  I  repeat.  The  object 
is  not  proof,  but  hfe.  The  appeal  is  not  to 
intelHgence  but  to  will.  These  things  "  are  written 
that  ye  might  beheve  that  Jesus  is  Messiah  and 
Son  of  God,  and  that  believing  ye  might  have  life 
in  His  name."  They  spoke  from  faith  to  faith. 
They  were  not  proofs  to  convince  the  world.  Neither 
the  miracles  nor  the  Gospels  were  advertisements. 
They  were  not  evidences.  They  were  there  to 
feed  rather  than  to  fascinate,  to  edify  more  than 
defend,  and  to  confirm  more  than  to  convince. 
They  were  material  to  build  up  the  Church.  They 
spoke  to  believers.  They  appeal  not  to  an  estimate 
of  evidence  but  to  a  fault  of  will,  to  our  need  of  a 
Saviour  and  our  experience  of  grace.  They  belong 
to  the  literature  of  power,  not  of  knowledge.  The 
news  they  bring  is  of  an   impressive  creative  act, 


The  Preacher  and  his  Charter    1 5 

and  not  a  cold  cause,  or  a  still  fact.  Their  inspir 
ation  is  not  in  regard  to  mere  truth,  but  to 
the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  to  Jesus  as  the  Truth, 
to  truth  as  a  personality,  and  a  personality 
gathered    up  in  a  universal  redeeming  act. 

It  is  inspiration,  therefore,  which  does  not  guar- 
antee every  statement  or  view,  even  of  an  apostle. 
The  inspiration  is  not  infallible  in  the  sense  that 
every  event  is  certain  or  every  statement  final. 
You  may  agree  with  whctt  I  say  without  agreeing 
with  all  I  say.  The  Bible's  inspiration,  and  its 
infallibility,  are  such  as  pertain  to  redemption  and 
not  theology,  to  salvation  and  not  mere  history.  It 
is  as  infallible  as  a  Gospel  requires,  not  as  a  system. 
Remember  that  Christ  did  not  come  to  bring  a 
Bible  b  ut  to  bring  a  Gospel.  The  Bible  arose  after- 
wards from  the  Gospel  to  serve  the  Gospel.  We  do 
not  treat  the  Bible  aright,  we  do  not  treat  it  with 
the  respect  it  asks  for  itself,  when  we  treat  it  as  a 
theologian,  but  only  when  we  treat  it  as  an  apostle,  as 
a  preacher,  as  the  preacher  in  the  perpetual  pulpit  of 
the  Church.  It  is  saturated  with  dogma,  but  its 
writers  were  not  dogmatists  ;  and  it  concerns  a 
Church,  but  they  were  not  ecclesiastics.  The  Bible, 
the  preacher,  and  the  Church  are  all  made  by  the 
same  thing — the  Gospel.  The  Gospel  was  there 
before  the  Bible,  and  it  created  the  Bible,  as 
it  creates  the  true  preacher  and  the  true  sermon 
ever3rwhere.  And  it  is  for  the  sake  and  service 
of  the  Gospel  that  both  Bible  and  preacher  exist. 
We    are    bound    to   use    both,    at    any     cost    to 


1 6   The  Preacher  and  his  Charter 

tradition,  in  the   way  that  gives  freest  course    to 
the  Gospel  in  which  they  arose. 

The  Bible,  therefore,  is  there  as  the  medium  of 

the  Gospel.     It  was  created  by  faith  in  the  Gospel. 

And  in  turn  it  creates  faith  among  men.     It  is  at 

once  the  expression  of  faith  and  its  source.     It  is  a 

nation's  sermon  to  the  race.    It  is  the  wonder-working 

relic  of  a  saint-nation  which  was  the  living  organ 

of  living  revelation.     What  made  the  inspiration  of 

the  book  ?     It  was  the  prior  inspiration  of  the  people 

1  and  of  the  men  by  the  revelation.     Revelation  does 

I  not    consist    of    communications    about    God.     It 

I  never  did.     If  it  had  it  might  have  come  by  an 

{  inspired    book  dictated  to  one  in  a  dream.     But 

\  revelation  is  the    self-bestowal  of   the  hving  God, 

\  his  self  limitation  in  the  interest  of  grace.      It  is 

I  the  living   God  in   the  act  of   imparting  Himself 

\  to  living  souls.     It  is  God  Himself  drawing  ever 

I  more  near  and  arrived  at  last.     And  a  living  God 

I  can  only  come  to  men  by  Hving  men.     Inspiration 

"i  is  the  state  of  a  soul,  not  of  a  book — of  a  book 

I  only  in  so  far  as  the  book  is  a  transcript  of  a  soul 

I  inspired.     It  was  by  men  that  God  gave  Himself  to 

':  men,  till,  in  the  fullness  of  time,  He  came,  for  good 

I  and  all,  in  the  God-man  Christ,  the  living  Word ; 

I  in    whom  God  was  present,  reconciling   the  world 

I  unto    Himself,    not    merely    acting    through     Him 

f  but  present  in  Him,  reconciling  and  not  speaking 

i  of   reconciliation,  or  merely  offering  it  to  us.     He 

?  acted  not  only  through  Christ  but  in  Christ.     He 

who  came  was    God  the  Son,  and  not  a   sinless 


The  Preacher  and  his  Charter    1 7 

saint  dowered  and  guided  by  the  Spirit.     In  Christ  | 
we  have    God    Himself,   and  no  mere    messenger  f 
from  God.     That  truth  was  the  substantial  victory  | 
gained  by  Athanasian    theology    for   the   Church 
once  for  all. 


Now  if  this  be  so,  that  the  Bible  exists  for  the 
Gospel  which  created  it,  then  this  Gospel  is  the 
standard  of  all  that  the  Bible  contains.  If  the 
Bible  is  the  great  discourse,  and  may  even  be  called 
a  preacher  above  all  else,  then  it  is  to  be  interpreted 
as  a  sermon  is  interpreted,  and  not  as  a  dogmatic, 
nor  as  a  protocol. 

We  do  not  treat  a  preacher  fairly  when  we  judge 
him  by  statements,  logic,  anecdotes,  or  phrases. 
We  must  judge  him  by  his  positive  and  effective 
message.  The  preacher  claims  to  be  thus  under- 
stood. He  protests  bitterly  against  the  mindless 
isolation  of  his  obiter  dicta,  and  the  throwing  up 
into  large  type  of  chance  phrases.  He  asks  that  we 
will  give  much  more  attention  to  his  message  than 
to  his  methods.  And  if  his  methods  echpse  his 
message  he  feels,  or  ought  to  feel,  that  he  has 
failed.  He  has  preached  himself.  His  idiosyncrasy 
has  stepped  in  front  of  his  Gospel. 

Well,  what  the  preacher  claims  from  the  pubhc  in 
this  way  the  Bible  claims  from  the  preacher. 
Measure  it  by  its  message,  not  its  phrase,  its  style, 
its  incidents,  episodes,  views,  or  faults. 

The  Bible  is  the  preacher  for  preachers.     It  speaks 

p.p. 


I  8    The  Preacher  and  his  Charter 

to  them  above  all,  and  with  a  word  and  not  a  creed.  It 
makes  believers  into  preachers  or  agents  in  proportion 
as  it  lays  hold  of  them.  Its  first  congenial  appeal  is 
not  to  the  scientific  theologian.  It  handles  his  ideas, 
but  it  does  not  speak  his  methodic  language.  St. 
Paul,  for  instance,  was  no  dogmatician  in  the  sense 
of  Aquinas  or  Melanchthon.  He  was  comparatively 
careless  about  the  correct  form  of  his  belief,  what 
could  now  be  called  its  orthodoxy  (indeed  he  was 
the  great  heretic  of  his  day)  ;  and  he  was  lost  in  the 
experimental  reality  of  it.  He  was  the  first  of  Chris- 
tian theologians  only  because  he  was  the  greatest  of 
Christian  experimentalists.  To  express  a  reality  so 
unspeakable  he  strained  language  and  tortured 
ideas,  which  he  enlisted  from  any  quarter  where  he 
could  lay  hands  on  them.  No,  it  is  not  to  the 
scientific  theologian,  far  less  to  the  correct  theologian, 
the  orthodoxist,  that  the  Bible  first  speaks.  It  is 
a  preacher  to  preachers.  And  as  the  preacher's  first 
concern  is  not  dogma  but  Gospel,  not  creed  but 
grace,  so  it  is  with  the  Bible.  Every  part  of  it  is 
to  be  valued  in  the  perspective  of  grace,  in  the 
proportion  of  faith  in  grace.  It  is  all  to  be  measured 
by  its  contribution  to  God's  redeeming  grace,  by 
its  effect  as  an  agent  of  grace.  The  final  criticism  of 
the  Bible  is  not  the'  higher  criticism'  but  the  highest, 
the  criticism  whose  principle  is  God's  supreme  object 
in  Bible,  Church,  or  even  Christ — the  object  of 
reconciling  grace.  The  final  criticism  of  it  is  neither 
literary  nor  scientific  but  evangelical,  as  the  preacher 
must  be.     If  the  Bible  is  a  preacher  its  first  object 


The  Preacher  and  his  Charter    19 

is  not  to  carry  home  divine  truth  but  divine  mercy. 
It  is  not  formal  but  dynamic,  not  scientific  but 
sacramental.  The  theologian  has  charge  of  the 
Gospel  as  truth,  the  preacher  has  it  in  his  charge  as 
grace.  The  very  iteration  of  the  word  grace  in  my 
style  only  reflects  the  continuity,  the  dominance  of 
the  thing  in  our  faith.  The  Bible,  like  its  preacher, 
is  not  the  organ  of  God  to  the  scientific  intel- 
ligence, but  the  sacrament  of  God  to  the  soul,  of 
the  living  God  to  living  men,  of  the  gracious  God 
to  lost  men. 

If  we  ask  what  is  a  modem  Christian  theology, 
it  is  the  Gospel  taking  the  age  seriously,  with  a 
real,  sympathetic  and  informed  effort  to  understand 
it,  in  the  interest  of  no  confession,  but  always  keep-    , 
ing  a  historic  and  positive  salvation  in  the  front, 
and  refusing  everything  in  any  age  that  is  incom- 
patible with  it.     It  takes  its  stand  neither  on  the  | 
spirit  of  the  age,  nor  on  the  Christian  consciousness,  | 
nor  on  the  Christian  principle,  but  on  the  historic  1 
and  whole  New  Testament  Christ,  1 

§ 
May  I  illustrate  what  I  mean  when  I  say  that  the 
final  criticism  of  the  Bible,  as  a  preacher,  is  not  the 
higher  rationalism  but  the  highest  grace.  The 
question  of  the  Virgin  Birth  is  one  that  already 
exercises  many  and  is  shortly  bound  to  exercise 
many  more.  How  is  that  question  to  be  settled  ? 
It  is  generally  admitted  that  if  it  were  not  for  the 
opening  chapters  of  Matthew  and  Luke  no  other 


2  0   The  Preacher  and  his  Charter 

parts  of  the  Bible  would  leave  it  tenable,  by  direct 
evidence  at  least.  Now  the  higher  criticism  claims 
the  right  to  dismiss  these  early  chapters,  and  to  say 
whether  they  are  integral  with  the  rest  of  the 
Gospels  in  which  they  are  incorporated  ;  or,  if  so, 
whether  they  represent  the  earhest  truth,  or  a  later 
tradition  used  by  the  evangehst.  But  supposing 
it  came  to  be  generally  held  that  the  story  is  integral 
to  the  literary  whole  of  the  book  in  which  it  occurs, 
that  does  not  settle  the  question  of  fact.  Such  could 
only  be  the  case  if  we  agree  beforehand  that  every- 
thing stated  integrally  in  the  Bible  is  historically 
true.  Nor  would  the  question  be  settled  if  we  held 
that  the  story  was  beheved  by  the  Church  at  a  stage 
earlier  than  the  Gospels.  That  would  settle  it  only  if 
we  agreed  in  advance  that  whatever  was  held  by 
the  Church  of  the  first  decades  was  true — including 
the  explanation  of  epilepsy  by  demons.  Or  if,  on 
the  other  hand,  critics  came  to  agree  that  the 
narrative  was  quite  detachable  from  the  rest  of 
Matthew  or  Luke,  that  would  not  settle  the  question 
against  its  historicity.  It  could  do  so  only  if  we 
agree  in  advance  that  nothing  is  historically  true 
but  what  proceeded  from  the  pen  of  a  particular 
apostolic  writer  or  writers.  That  is  to  say,  the  matter 
is  not  really  to  be  settled  by  any  decision  of  the 
literary  critics,  acting  simply  as  critics.  So  also  it 
might  be  shown  not  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  his- 
torical criticism  either.  The  real  settlement  of 
the  question  lies  farther  within  theological  terri- 
tory.    It  is  really  a  theological  question  and  not  a 


The  Preacher  and  his  Charter    2  i 

critical,  as  I  hope  later  to  show.  The  Virgin  birth 
is  not  a  necessity  created  by  the  integrity  and 
infaUibility  of  the  Bible ;  it  is  a  necessity  created 
(if  at  all)  by  the  soHdarity  of  the  Gospel,  and 
by  the  requirements  of  grace.  Was  such  a  mode 
of  entry  into  the  world  indispensable  for  Christ's 
work  of  redemption  ?  If  it  was  otiose  to  that  work 
then  we  can  leave  it  to  the  methods  of  the  critics. 
But  if  it  was  essential  to  that  work  we  must  refuse 
them  the  last  word.  If  it  was  essential  to  the  perfect 
holiness  of  Christ's  redeeming  obedience,  what  is 
unhappily  called  His  sinlessness,  then  it  must  stand, 
whatever  the  critics  say.  I  am  not  here  called  on  to 
decide  that  question.  I  only  quote  it  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  method,  to  show  what  is  meant  by  sa5dng  that 
there  is  a  dogmatic  criticism  of  the  Bible  higher 
than  what  is  called  the  higher.  And  it  consists 
in  judging  the  parts  of  the  Bible  by  its  whole  message 
and  action,  in  bringing  every  detail  to  this  test — how 
does  it  serve  the  one  divine  purpose  which  makes  the 
library  a  book  and  the  book  the  Word — the  purpose 
of  preaching  saving  grace  ? 

This  is  actually  Luther's  test — does  this  or  that 
passage  "  ply  Christ,  preach  Christ  ?  "  Is  it  in 
solidary  connexion,  direct  or  indirect,  with  Him  ? 
But  the  way  I  have  ventured  to  put  it,  by  saying  the 
Gospel  instead  of  Christ,  makes  the  issue  a  little 
more  distinct,  perhaps,  and  the  test  more  pointed. 
As  I  said,  we  cannot  have  a  biography  of  Christ. 
We  cannot  easily  tell  what  is  or  is  not  congruous  with 
a  character  of  whose  psychology  we  know  so  little 


2  2   The  Preacher  and  his  Charter 

as  the  Gospels  tell  us.  But  we  do  know  above  all 
other  knowledge  the  scope,  object,  and  act  of  Christ's 
person.  We  do  know  the  Christ  of  our  faith  better 
than  any  Christ  of  our  constructive  imagination,  for 
all  its  precious  results  from  modern  methods.  He  was 
gathered  up  for  us,  as  for  God,  in  the  consummation 
of  the  Cross.  And  the  Cross  is  there  as  the  agent 
of  God's  grace  in  redemption.  Christ  was  born  to 
die.  To  preach  Christ  really  means  to  preach  the 
Cross  where  His  person  took  effect  as  the  incarnation 
and  the  agent  of  the  atoning  grace  of  God.  For  this 
therefore,  I  say  that  Christ  Himself  existed — not  to 
present  us  with  the  supreme  spiritual  spectacle  of 
history,  but  to  achieve  the  critical  thing  in  history. 
The  Gospel  is  an  act  of  God,  gathered  in  a  point  but 
thrilling  through  history,  and  it  calls  for  an  act,  and 
inspires  it.  Its  preaching  must  therefore  be  an  act,  a 
"  function  "  of  the  great  act.  A  true  sermon  is  a 
real  deed.  It  puts  the  preacher's  personahty  into 
an  act.  That  is  his  chief  form  of  Christian  life  and 
practice.  And  one  of  his  great  difficulties  is  that  he 
has  to  multiply  words  about  what  is  essentially  a 
deed.  If  you  remember  what  men  of  affairs  think 
about  the  people  who  make  set  speeches  in  committee 
you  will  realize  how  the  preacher  loses  power  whose 
sermons  are  felt  to  be  productions,  or  lessons,  or 
speeches,  rather  than  real  acts  of  will,  struggles  with 
other  wills,  and  exercises  of  effective  power.  The 
Gospel  means  something  done  and  not  simply 
declared.  For  this  work  Christ  existed  on  earth. 
And  to  give  this  work  effect  Bible  and  Church  alike 


The  Preacher  and  his  Charter  23 

exist.  We  treat  the  Church  as  plastic  to  that  work 
and  its  fulfilment,  do  we  not  ?  That  is  the  true 
Church,  and  the  true  form  of  Church,  which  gives 
best  effect  to  the  Gospel.  So  also  we  must  treat  the 
Bible  with  much  flexibility.  The  test  and  the  trial 
of  all  is  the  grace  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  in 
Him  as  crucified.  Everything  is  imperishable  which 
is  inseparable  from  that. 

§ 
The  Bible,  I  have  said,  is  the  preacher  to  the 
preacher.  But  I  shall  be  met  perhaps  by  the  observa- 
tion that  the  preacher  to  the  preacher  is  the  Holy 
Spirit.  It  is  an  observation  quite  just.  But  it 
does  not  impair  the  force  of  what  I  have  said.  What 
is  the  principle  of  the  Spirit's  action  on  men  ?  The 
Spirit  is  so  much  the  spirit  of  Christ  that  we  find  in 
Paul's  mouth  the  expression,  "  the  Lord  the  Spirit  " 
—the  Lord  is  the  Spirit.  I  will  not  discuss  the  hard 
question  thus  raised  as  to  the  relation  between  the 
kingly  Christ  in  Heaven  and  the  Holy  Spirit.  For 
my  purpose  I  may  speak  of  the  Spirit's  action  as  the 
action  of  Christ  in  that  heavenly  kingship  of  His, 
which  is  the  completion  of  His  work  as  prophet 
and  priest.  The  same  Christ  as  on  earth  was  both 
prophet  and  priest  is  in  Heaven  king  also,  by  His 
finality  and  perfection  in  both.  He  does  not  sit  on 
a  height  apart,  retired,  and  simply  watch,  with  a 
parental  eye,  the  progress  of  the  great  kingdom  He 
set  on  its  feet,  the  great  concern  He  founded  and  left 
to  run.  He  still  continues  his  prophetic  and  priestly 
work   in   a   supreme   and   kingly  way.     But  how* 


24   The  Preacher  and  his  Charter 

precisely  ?  Is  it  merely  by  the  emission  of  waves 
of  spiritual  force,  supplementary  and  propulsive 
to  the  fundamental  work  of  His  earthly  life  ?  It  is 
sometimes  so  viewed,  as  if  the  Spirit  were  a  new 
and  even  a  superior  dispensation.  We  find  the 
tendency  both  among  the  dogmatic  pietists  and 
among  the  undogmatic  Christians  who  renounce 
theology  in  the  interest  of  the  Christian  spirit  or 
temper.  In  the  history  of  the  Church  men  and 
movements  arise  under  a  strong  rehgious  impulse 
which  is  either  vague  or  extravagant.  It  is  vague 
as  being  undefined  by  the  positive  principles  of 
faith  ;  or  it  is  extravagant  as  being  uncontrolled  by 
the  authority  of  a  historic  revelation.  Certain 
mystic  movements  have  their  very  vogue  by  their 
independence  of  the  Bible.  They  gratify  our  mo- 
dernity, our  subjectivity,  our  spurious  spirituality, 
our  impressionism.  Some  Christianized  forms  of 
natural  piety  manage  to  combine  much  human  grace 
and  religious  sympathy  with  little  personal  use  of 
Scripture.  And  other  movements  in  the  direction  of 
a  superior  sanctity  seem,  at  least  at  times,  to  associate 
sanctification  much  less  directly  with  justification 
than  the  Bible  does.  But  the  action  of  the  glorified 
Christ  is  always  represented  in  the  New  Testament 
not  as  making  new  departures,  or  issuing  fresh 
waves,  but  as  giving  fresh  effect  to  His  own  historic 
work,  keeping  it  a  personal  act,  and  preventing  it 
from  being  a  mere  spiritual  process.  One  of  the 
greatest  actions  of  the  Spirit  in  modern  thought  is 
to  preserve  Christ's  influence  from  being  detached 


The  Preacher  and  his  Charter   25 

from  his  act  and  turned  into  a  moral  process.  His 
spirit  brings  the  act  to  remembrance  ;  or  takes  of 
the  work  of  Christ  and  shows  it  to  the  Church. 
He  leads  the  Church  into  all  truth,  but  it  is  the  truth 
as  it  is  in  the  whole  Jesus.  And  nothing  is  more 
shallow  and  pretentious  than  the  attempt  to  reform 
Church  or  creed  by  giving  the  Bible  the  go-by,  or 
pooh-poohing  its  theology  in  the  interest  of  an 
aesthetic  or  an  idealist  construction  of  religion. 

This  return  to  history  is  especially  shown  at  the 
great  crises  of  the  Church's  career,  whether  you  take 
Luther,  Wesley,  or  Schleiermacher.  The  Lord  from 
Heaven  forces  the  soul  of  the  Church  into  a  closer  con- 
tact with  His  historic  person  and  work,  and  gives  a 
deeper  penetration  of  it.  It  is  the  only  condition  of  real 
revival.  It  is  the  inspiration  of  evangelical  preach- 
ing in  the  great  sense  of  the  word.  It  was  particu- 
larly the  case  with  Paul,  from  whom  these  other  great 
names  have  their  apostohc  succession.  He  fastened 
on  the  Cross,  if  I  might  venture  so  to  say,  and  pressed 
the  whole  divine  hfe  out  of  it  for  our  healing.  And 
the  history  is  our  great  protection  now  against 
both  an  idealism  and  an  extravagance  which  readily 
run  down  into  aloofness,  feebleness,  and  futility. 
It  keeps  faith  from  the  sentimentalism  which  to-day 
so  easily  besets  it,  by  keeping  it  in  the  closest  contact 
with  the  focus  of  the  world's  moral  reahsm  in  the 
Cross.  Our  aim  must  be  an  ever  fresh  immersion 
in  the  Bible,  an  immersion  both  scholarly  and  experi- 
mental. We  see  deeper  into  it  than  our  deep 
fathers  did,  though  on  other  lines  ;   for  the  new  age 


2  6    The  Preacher  and  his  Charter 

has  new  eyes.  It  has  new  needs,  and  need  makes 
wit.  Through  the  ever-deepening  need  of  man 
Christ  is  pressing  His  one  personal,  fundamental,  and 
final  work  into  our  souls.  He  unfolds  and  freshens 
its  searching  meaning  and  eternal  power.  New  men 
and  new  occasions  do  but  elicit  from  Him  fresh 
wealth  of  resource.  But  it  all  comes  from  the  Bible 
Christ,  from  the  Christ  of  the  Cross.  The  more  He 
changes  the  more  He  is  the  same.  Stability  is  not 
stiffness.  Jesus,  the  same  yesterday,  to-day, 
and  for  ever,  is  not  a  dead  identity,  a  monu- 
ment that  we  leave  behind,  but  a  persistent  per- 
sonality that  never  ceases  to  open  upon  us.  All 
permanent  work  in  the  kingdom  is  His  work,  of 
His  initiative  and  not  only  in  His  succession.  It 
is  because  He  acts  on  us  from  the  other  world  that 
that  world  is  not  a  mist,  a  riddle,  or  a  desert  for  us, 
and  we  are  not  aliens  there.  But  from  there  He 
acts  on  us  through  what  He  was  and  did  in  history 
once  for  all.  Our  real  and  destined  eternity  goes 
round  by  Nazareth  to  reach  us.  What  abides  in 
history  is  not  the  impression  He  made,  nor  a 
Church's  report.  But  it  is  His  historic  self,  prophetic 
and  priestly  still  in  the  kingly  way  of  eternity.  He 
is  born  again  in  each  soul  that  is  born  anew. 
And  those  who  preach  are  the  channels  and  agents 
of  the  preaching,  praying  Christ,  working  from  His 
spiritual  world,  but  working  still  through  Jeru- 
salem, through  the  Bible.  If  it  is  not  so  our 
Protestant  doctrine  of  Scripture,  its  constant  use, 
free  function,  and  first  necessity  for  every  soul,  is 
a  mistake  and  an  unreality. 


The   Preacher  and  his  Charter   27 


§ 

But  if  the  Bible  is  the  supreme  preacher  to  the 
preacher,  if  it  is  through  the  Bible  and  its  gospel  above 
all  that  the  Holy  Ghost  works  upon  him,  how  is  the 
preacher  to  preach  the  Bible  ?  Is  his  relation  to  it  sug- 
gestive or  expository  ?  Is  he  to  read  in,  or  read  out  ? 
Is  he  to  preach  whatever  it  may  strike  from  his  mind, 
or  what  his  faith  truly  finds  in  it  ?  Is  he  to  treat  it 
as  a  jewelled  mass  of  facets  of  trembling  lights,  or  as 
the  living  source  of  a  positive  revelation  ?  Is  it  a 
huge  brilliant,  finely  cut,  afire  with  all  kinds  of  rich 
and  mystic  hues,  or  is  it  a  sun  which  issues  the 
energy  of  the  new  world  more  even  than  its  light  ? 
Is  the  preacher's  work  to  lead  the  people  into  a 
larger  modem  world  of  suggestion  which  the  Bible, 
without  creating,  has  yet  the  power  to  stir,  or  shall 
he  lead  them  into  the  Bible's  own  great  renew- 
ing heart  ?  There  is  no  doubt  the  modem  man 
inhabits  a  world  larger  in  some  ways  than  the  Bible 
view  of  the  cosmos  or  of  man,  a  world  of  conception 
not  due  to  the  Bible  but  rather  to  art,  science, 
exploration,  industry  and  the  like.  And  the  Bible 
does  possess  on  its  part,  in  many  words  and 
phrases,  that  feature  of  inspiration  which  we  might 
call  glancing  lights,  as  distinct  from  penetrative 
power,  the  flash  rather  than  the  force  of  the  Spirit's 
sword.  The  book  of  Job,  for  instance,  apart  from  its 
place  in  the  history  of  moral  revelation,  has  an 
extraordinary  modernity  both  in  theme  and  phrase. 
It  is  full  of  angles  of  reflection  of  the  modern  mind. 


2  8    The  Preacher  and  his  Charter 

All  that  is  true.  But  our  whole  view  of  the  rela- 
tion of  the  B  bb  to  the  Gospel  must  be  changed  if 
we  hold  that  that  suggestive  power  is  the  main 
feature  of  the  Bible,  or  its  main  function,  that  the 
Bible  is  there  like  a  work  of  art,  nimium  lubricus 
adspici,  offering,  like  a  bird's  neck,  a  play  of  fleeting 
hues  for  every  man  to  seize  what  he  has  affinity  to 
find.  The  Bible  does  not  appeal  to  our  affinities 
so  much  as  to  our  needs,  nor  to  our  ingenuity  so 
much  as  to  our  penetration,  nor  to  our  spiritual 
fancy  so  much  as  to  our  faith.  To  treat  the  Bible 
chiefly  in  that  casual  way  is  to  return  by  another 
route  to  the  old  textual,  atomistic,  individualist 
fashion  of  dealing  with  it,  the  old,  unhistoric,  and 
often  fantastic  Biblicism.  Whereas  one  of  the  great 
tasks  of  the  preacher  is  to  rescue  the  Bible  from  the 
textual  idea  in  the  mind  of  the  public,  from  the 
Biblicist,  atomist  idea  which  reduces  it  to  a  religious 
scrap  book,  and  uses  it  only  in  verses  or  phrases. 
There  is  a  true  place  for  such  a  use,  but  it  has 
monopolized  the  Bible  with  the  general  public  ; 
and  that  is  not  right.  The  Bible  is  much  more 
than  a  collection  of  spiritual  apophthegms,  or  the 
gnomic  reliquiae  of  moral  sages.  And  a  great  part  of 
the  preacher's  work  is  to  rescue  the  Bible  from  this 
treatment,  which  is  largely  due  to  textual  preaching, 
and  is  part  of  the  price  we  pay  for  it.  He  must 
cultivate  more  the  free,  large,  and  organic  treatment 
of  the  Bible,  where  each  part  is  most  valuable  for 
its  contribution  to  a  living,  evangelical  whole,  and 
where  that  whole  is  articulated  into  the  great  course 


The  Preacher  and  his  Charter   29 

of  human  history.  This  is  one  of  the  benefits  we 
leam  from  the  study  of  comparative  rehgion,  and 
particularly  from  the  work  of  the  new  religious- 
historic  school,  when  rightly  used.  But  at  first  it 
will  be  less  popular  than  the  more  fanciful  treatment 
in  which  the  pubUc  loves  to  roam  and  pick  up  the 
stray  gifts  that  belong  to  whoever  can  find.  Their 
right  is  not  here  denied  if  it  be  kept  in  its  due  place, 
which  is  the  second,  not  the  first.  Who  can  deny  the 
Bible's  fragmentary  and  suggestive  power  ?  Who 
should  refuse  it  in  private  meditation  ?  Who  would 
forbid  textual  preaching  ?  But  for  the  public  pur- 
poses of  Church  and  ministry  there  is  another  and 
higher  point  of  view.  The  Bible  is  primarily  there 
for  a  single  and  pubhc  purpose,  for  a  historic,  social, 
and  collective  purpose,  for  a  purpose  of  the  race. 
It  is  there  not  as  a  fountain  of  stray  suggestion 
but  as  a  channel  of  positive  revelation  and  a  source 
(A  spiritual  authority.  Bible  preaching  means  lead- 
ing people  into  the  Bible  and  its  powers.  It  is 
not  leading  them  out  of  the  Bible  into  subjectivities, 
fancies,  quips,  or  queries.  The  Bible  has  a  world 
and  a  context  of  its  own.  It  has  an  ethos,  if  not 
a  cosmos,  of  its  own.  It  cannot  simply  be  assigned 
a  leading  place  among  the  literatures  of  the  world, 
or  given  the  hegemony  of  those  fine  forces  of  the 
human  spirit  "  bound  to  get  to  God."  It  has  a 
place  far  beyond  what  it  takes  in  the  history  of 
religion,  if  we  think  of  religion  only  as  the  Godward 
projection  of  man.  It  has  also  a  supreme,  a 
solitary,  place  of  its  own  in  the  action  of  revelation, 


30   The  Preacher  and  his  Charter 

thinking  of  revelation  "  as  the  man  ward  move- 
ment of  God."  It  not  only  stirs  our  opinion  as 
another  rehgion  might  do  :  it  demands  our  decision, 
our  selves.  The  ethos  of  the  Bible  is  beyond  our 
cosmos,  however  largely  you  construe  that  cosmos, 
though  you  extend  it  to  all  modern  dimensions. 
And  not  only  so,  but  it  represents  the  God  of  the 
cosmos.  If  it  is  to  be  integrated  with  the  cosmos 
at  all,  it  is  as  the  final  purpose  always  controls 
the  evolving  process,  and  the  drift  the  context. 

When  I  speak  of  Biblical  context  I  am  not  thinking 
on  the  mere  textual  scale.  I  mean  the  context  of  the 
whole  spiritual  order  in  which  the  Bible  is  imbedded. 
It  is  necessary,  of  course,  for  any  preacher  who 
would  deal  seriously  with  the  verse  of  his  text 
to  study  and  handle  it  in  its  context.  But  what  is 
true  of  a  text  from  the  Bible  is  truer  still  of  the  whole 
Bible  as  a  text.  It  can  be  truly  and  fruitfully 
studied  only  in  its  moral  context  of  history.  And 
by  that  again  I  do  not  merely  mean  either  the  con- 
text of  each  passage  in  the  history  of  Israel,  or  the 
whole  book's  context  in  the  history  of  religion,  in  its 
relation  to  other  religions,  other  contemporary  or 
previous  systems  amid  which  it  arose.  Great  is  the 
light  that  comes  from  that  source,  and  it  entails  some 
change  in  divers  of  our  interpretations.  But  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  the  Bible's  evangelical  context,  its 
organic  moral  relevancy  to  the  conscience  of  Human- 
ity, and  I  mean  that.  I  mean  its  function  in  the  actual 
moral  condition  of  the  total  perennial  human  soul, 
in  the  great  tissue  and  issue  of  human  destiny.     I 


The  Preacher  and  his  Charter   3  i 

mean  the  whole  moral  situation  which  Christianity 
reveals  in  man  as  truly  as  it  reveals  the  holy 
grace  of  God.  I  speak  of  the  moral  context  of 
the  Bible  as  a  whole  in  the  race's  conscience — the 
human  sin  which  the  holy  Saviour  casts  into  the 
deeper  shade,  the  lostness  revealed  by  the  Gospel  that 
finds.  In  respect  of  the  cosmos,  whether  of  nature, 
the  soul  or  society,  the  Bible  may  be  very  suggestive  ; 
and  it  may  give  rise  to  many  theologoumena,  some 
speculative,  some  merely  fantastic,  as  most  amateur 
theologoumena  are.  The  Bible  is  like  the  United 
States  (will  you  pardon  this  glancing  light  ?),  the 
richest  ground  in  the  world  for  every  variety  of 
"  crank."  But  in  respect  of  the  ethos,  in  relation 
to  the  fundamental  moral  condition  of  the  race, 
the  Bible  is  much  more  positive  for  conscience  than 
suggestive  for  fancy.  It  has  a  definite  message  and 
a  central  task.  It  has  something  imperative,  which 
overrules  all  the  suggestions  of  fantasy  or  ingenuity  ; 
and  something  crucial  which  transcends  the  mere 
play  of  thought,  or  the  mere  practice  of  poetry. 
It  compels  an  attitude,  a  choice,  a  line  to  be  taken.  \ 
Its  reaHty  appeals  to  our  reality  in  will.  It  has  at  i 
its  core  something  which  demands  to  be  met  actively,  | 
and  crucially  if  need  be,  something  that  closes?; 
with  history  in  moral  conflict.  It  has  a  Gospel,  nay  | 
the  Gospel,  for  the  worst  condition  of  the  whole 
energetic  race.  It  has  mankind's  inevitable  word 
and  its  eternal  destiny, 

§ 
It  is  that  word  that  the  preacher  must  bring  to  the 


32    The  Preacher  and  his  Charter 

people.  It  is  in  that  word  he  must  himself  live ; 
especially  with  historic  study,  avoiding  the  artificial 
paradigms  and  surface  "  railways  "  that  disfigure  its 
meaning  to  the  untaught.  The  Dutch  gardeners  do 
the  Bible  as  much  harm  as  the  people  who  but 
pick  the  flowers.  Let  the  preacher's  suggestion  teem 
by  all  means,  as  it  will  teem,  in  the  quickened  vitality 
given  to  his  personal  resources  by  the  Word  of  Life. 
Let  the  gift  of  his  fancy  be  stirred  up,  as  well  as  all 
his  other  gifts,  by  this  life  beyond  all  gifts.  But  let 
every  suggestion  keep  its  true  place  in  the  economy 
and  proportion  of  faith.  Let  it  wear  the  clear  livery 
of  the  Gospel,  and  conspire  to  lighten  and  magnify 
that.  For  instance  if,  as  the  preacher  reads  the  words 
''  He  shall  show  you  an  upper  room  furnished,"  it 
strikes  him^with  a  flash  that  Christ's  Gospel  not  only 
lights  up  the  ideal  world  over  him  but  stocks  it  with 
a  content  of  positive  truth  for  our  spiritual  dwelling 
and  use,  by  all  means  let  him  preach  a  sermon  to  that 
effect  from  the  text.  But  let  it  be  clear  that  he  is 
using  some  sacred  fancy  in  so  doing.  And  let  him 
realize  that  such  a  treatment  of  the  Bible  is  on  a 
very  different  footing  from  that  which  he  employs 
if  he  preach  on  central  words  like  these  :  "  Being 
justified  by  faith  we  have  peace  with  God  through 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  It  is  into  the  Bible  world 
of  the  eternal  redemption,  that  the  preacher  must 
bring  his  people.  This  eternal  world  from  which 
Christ  came  is  contemporary  with  every  age.  To 
every  age  it  is  equally  near,  and  it  is  equally  authorita- 
tive for  every  age,  however  modem.     It  is  never 


The  Preacher  and  his  Charter    3 


o 


antiquated  in  its  final  principles  and  powers.  The 
only  preaching  which  is  up  to  date  for  every  time  is 
the  preaching  of  this  eternity,  which  is  opened  to  us  in 
the  Bible  alone — the  eternal  of  holy  love,  grace  and 
redemption,  the  eternal  and  immutable  morality  of 
saving  grace  for  our  indelible  sin. 

It  is  not  the  preacher's  prime  duty  then  to  find 
happy  texts  for  the  exposition  of  modern  thought. 
Nor  must  he  sink  the  Gospel  to  a  revelation  which 
puts  people  in  a  good  humour  with  themselves  by 
declaring  to  them  that  the  great  divine  message 
is  the  irrepressible  spirituality  of  human  nature.  It 
is  an  inversion  of  his  work  if  he  begin  with  Christ  and 
enlarge  into  Goethe.  Let  him  begin  with  Goethe, 
if  he  will,  so  that  he  go  on  to  enlarge  into  Christ. 
Let  him  learn  from  the  first  part  of  Faust  ;  he  has 
nothing  to  learn  from  the  second.  Let  him  state  the 
problem  as  powerfully  as  Shakespeare  left  it,  but  let 
him  answer  it  with  the  final  answer  Christ  left.  No 
genius  has  or  can  have  it  but  from  Christ.  For 
He  is  the  answer  that  they  but  crave.  And  they  but 
state,  as  only  genius  can,  the  human  tragedy  which  it 
is  Christ's  to  retrieve. 


But  the  preacher  who  tries  to  follow  this  advice 
will  find  himself  in  one  great  difficulty.  The  Bible 
may  be  his  text  book,  but  it  has  ceased  to  be  the 
text  book  of  his  audience.  The  Bible  is  not  read 
by  the  Christian,  or  even  by  the  churchgoing,  pubHc 
as  a  means   of  grace  greater  even  than    church- 


34   The  Preacher  and  his  Charter 

going.  Our  people,  as  a  rule,  do  not  read  the  Bible, 
in  any  sense  which  makes  its  language  more  familiar 
and  dear  to  them  than  the  language  of  the  novel  or 
the  press.  And  I  will  go  so  far  as  to  confess  that 
one  of  the  chief  miscalculations  I  have  made  in 
the  course  of  my  own  ministerial  career  has  been 
to  speak  to  congregations  as  if  they  did  know  and 
use  the  Bible.  I  was  bred  where  it  was  well  known 
and  loved,  and  I  have  spent  my  ministerial  life 
where  it  is  less  so.  And  it  has  taken  me  so  long 
to  reaHze  the  fact  that  I  still  find  it  difficult  to 
adjust  myself  to  it.  I  am  long  accustomed  to 
being  called  obscure  by  many  whose  mental  habits 
and  interests  are  only  literary,  who  have  felt  but 
ja  languid  interest  in  the  final  questions  of  the  soul 
■  as  the  New  Testament  stirs  them,  who  treat  sin 
as  but  lapse,  God's  Grace  as  if  it  were  but  love,  and 
'His  love  as  if  it  were  but  paternal  kindness. 
At  first  I  beheved  I  was  obscure,  and  I  took 
pains  to  be  short  in  the  sentence  and  unadorned 
in  style.  But  I  found  my  critics  still  puzzled. 
And  I  have  come  to  think  the  obscurity  is  at 
least  in  some  degree  due  to  the  fact  that  while  I 
am  attracted  by  such  matters  beyond  all  else,  I 
am  often  dealing  with  people  to  whom  they  are 
not  only  strange  but  irritating.  They  have  applied 
to  religion  what  William  Morris  applied  to  life, 
"  Love  is  enough."  They  have  given  a  Christian 
varnish  to  what  in  him  was  mainly  pagan,  but  they 
have  not  really  stepped  out  of  his  natural  world. 
They  have  risen  to   locate  the  affections  in  God ; 


The  Preacher  and  his  Charter   35 

but  they  have  not  reahzed  faith  as  the  inroad,  the 
uprise  in  us  of  a  totally  new  worid,  Christianity  as  a 
new  creation,  and  the  new  life  as  a  new  birth.  Grace  '( 
for  them  is  only  love  exercised  on  the  divine  scale  / 
not  in  the  divine  style,  not  under  the  conditions  | 
of  holiness  and  sin.  They  read  in  the  heart  more  / 
than  in  the  Bible. 

The  old  Protestant  principle,  therefore,  no  longer 
rules  the  relation  of  preacher  and  people.  They  are 
not  spoken  to  from  their  Bible  as  they  are  from 
their  preacher.  Consequently  they  do  not  easil}' 
find  the  thing  they  like  in  the  preacher  who  lives 
in  his  Bible.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  they  are 
unable  to  exercise  on  the  preacher  the  check  of 
personal  experience  of  the  Bible  and  first-hand 
knowledge  of  it,  as  they  did  in  the  days  of  the 
great  classic  preachers.  But  that  is  the  habit  in 
the  people  which  makes  great  preachers  in  the 
pulpit.  And  it  is  that  principle  that  is  the  basis 
of  the  people's  place,  the  place  of  the  laity  in 
a  Protestant  Church.  Anything  else  is  in  principle 
Catholic.  It  is  a  Catholic  treatment  of  the  Bible 
to  leave  it  in  the  hands  of  the  minister  alone. 
And,  unless  there  be  a  change,  it  is  to  that  that 
Protestantism  is  coming.  Outside  an  evangelical 
Protestantism,  amply  construed,  there  is  nothing 
for  us  but  Catholicism.  For  general  Atheism  is 
permanently  impossible.  I  trust  you  will  not  here 
think  me  extravagant.  The  final  action  of  a  ' 
principle,  to  those  disaccustomed  to  principles,  is 
sure  to  seem  fanciful,    And  I  am  only  stating  the 


36   The  Preacher  and  his  Charter 

11  action  of  one  of  those  deeper  principles  which  in 

l\  the  end  form  the  logic  of  history,  and  override  all 

)i  the  tactics  of  the  hour.     And  the  principle  is  that 

'  j  where   Protestantism  falls  into  the  Catholic  treat- 

I  ment  of  the  Bible,  namely  its  disuse  by  the  laity, 

I  we  are  rapidly  getting  ready  for  the  Catholic  idea 

I  of   the  Church,  and  the   Catholic   construction   of 

\  the  priest.     To  restore  to  the  people  an  intelligent 

{  and  affectionate  use   of  the  Bible  is  a  service   to 

I  Protestantism  far  more  needed  than  those  violent 

}  and  ill-informed  denunciations  of  the  priest  which 

( are  so  easy  and  so  cheap. 


Bible  preaching  then  means  that  we  adjust  our 
preaching  to  the  people's  disuse  of  the  Bible.  We 
have  to  regain  their  interest  in  it.  It  is,  therefore,  not 
the  preaching  of  doctrine  with  proof  passages.  It  is 
not  preaching  which  does  the  Bible  the  lip  homage 
of  taking  a  text.  Nor  is  it  simply  preaching  historic 
facts  on  the  one  hand,  or  personal  experience  on  the 
other.  But  it  is  the  preaching  of  those  facts  and 
gifts  of  grace  which  are  experimentally  verifiable 
and  creative  of  experience.  It  is  only  on  points  so 
verifiable  that  the  Bible  can  be  doctrinally  used  by 
the  laity.  A  fact  like  the  Virgin  Birth  is  not  at 
all  on  the  same  footing  as  the  Resurrection  of 
Christ,  who  is  met  as  the  risen  Lord  by  His  dis- 
ciples to  this  day.  Christianity  is  not  the  religion 
of  a  book,  though  it  is  a  book  religion.  Nor  is  it 
the  religion  of  a  Church,   though  it  is  a  Church 


The  Preacher  and  his  Charter   37 

religion.  But  it  is  the  religion  of  a  Gospel  and  a 
grace.  These  are  the  facts  that  make  the  Church. 
Doctrine  as  doctrine  is  a  precious  and  indispens- 
able possession  of  the  Church,  but  it  was  not  such 
doctrine  that  made  the  Church.  Neither  ideas  nor 
truths  could  do  that,  but  only  persons  and  powers. 
Nor  does  such  doctrine  make  the  great  changes  of 
the  Church.  The  Reformation  was  not  a  reformation 
of  theology,  but  of  faith.  It  is  remarkable  how 
little  of  the  theology  it  changed  in  its  first  stage. 
It  was  the  renewed  action,  not  of  truth,  but  of 
grace.  It  was  the  greatest  of  evangelical  revivals. 
That  is  why  it  re-discovered  the  Bible.  It  was  not 
the  Bible  that  lighted  up  grace  for  Luther,  but  Grace 
to  his  needy  soul  lighted  up  the  Bible.  Biblical 
preaching  preaches  the  Gospel  and  uses  the  Bible,  it 
does  not  preach  the  Bible  and  use  the  Gospel. 

For  the  Gospel  the  Bible  must  be  used.  The 
minister  must  so  live  in  it  that  he  wears  it  easily. 
One  reason  why  people  are  repelled  from  it  is  that 
the  preachers  cannot  carry  it  with  easy  mastery. 
They  are  in  Goliath's  armour.  Now  the  ideal 
ministry  must  be  a  Bibliocracy.  It  must  know 
its  Bible  better  than  any  other  book.  Most 
Christians  hardly  know  their  Bible  at  first  hand 
at  all.  They  treat  it  with  respect,  no  doubt. 
They  keep  a  great  Bible  in  the  house  ;  but  it  is  on 
a  little  table,  not  very  steady,  in  the  parlour  window, 
and  it  has  stiff  clasps.  It  is  in  the  room  least  used  ; 
it  carries  a  vase  of  once  pretty  flowers  ;  and  it  gets 
in  the  way  of  the  rich  lace  curtains.     Which  is  all 


38   The  Preacher  and  his  Charter 

an  allegory.     Some  preachers  know  it  only  in  the 

way  of  business,  as  a  sermon  quarry.     But  the  true 

ministry  must  live  on  it.     We  must  speak  to  the 

Church  not  from  experience  alone,  but  still  more 

from  the  Word.     We  must  speak  from  within  the 

silent  sanctuary  of  Scripture.     We  do  not  realize 

always   how  eager   people   are  to.  hear   preaching 

which  makes  the  Bible  wonderful  by  speaking  from 

its  very  interior,  as  men  do  who  live  in  it  and  wonder 

themselves.     I  do  not  beheve  in  verbal  inspiration. 

I  am  with  the  critics,  in  principle.     But  the  true 

minister  ought  to  find  the  words  and  phrases  of 

the  Bible  so  full  of  spiritual  food  and  felicity  that 

he  has  some  difficulty  in    not   believing   in   verbal 

inspiration.     The  Bible  is  the  one  Enchiridion  of  the 

^  preacher  still,  the   one  manual  of  eternal  life,  the 

'  one  page  that  glows  as  all  life  grows  dark,  and  the 

I  one  book  whose  wealth  rebukes  us  more  the  older 

\  we  grow  because  we  knew  and  loved  it  so  late. 


Note  to  p.  13. 

"  The  first  Church  troubled  about  'the  real  Jesus  '  only  in 
so  far  as  suited  the  Jesus  living  for  their  faith.  .  .  .  Had 
Mark  attempted  or  achieved  such  a  model  biography  of 
Jesus  as  historical  science  demands  his  work  vi^ould  have 
been  useless  for  religion." — Jiilicher,  Neue  Linien,  p.  71. 


THE    AUTHORITY    OF   THE 
PREACHER 


II 

The    Authority  of   the    Preacher 

I  VENTURE  here  to  state  at  once  what  I  will  go  on 
to  explain,  that  the  preacher  is  the  organ  of  the  only 
real  and  final  authority  for  mankind.  He  is  its 
organ,  and  even  its  steward  ;  but  he  is  not  its  vicar, 
except  at  Rome. 

The  question  of  the  ultimate  authority  for  man- 
kind is  the  greatest  of  all  the  questions  which  meet 
the  West,  since  the  Catholic  Church  lost  its  place 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  since  criticism  no 
longer  allows  the  Bible  to  occupy  that  place.  Yet 
the  gospel  of  the  future  must  come  with  the  note 
of  authority.  Every  challenge  of  authority  but 
develops  the  need  of  it.  And  that  note  must  sound 
in  whatever  is  the  supreme  utterance  of  the  church, 
in  polity,  pulpit,  or  creed.  It  seems  clear,  indeed, 
unless  the  whole  modern  movement  is  to  be  simply 
undone,  that  the  Church  must  draw  in  the  range  of 
its  authority,  and  even  Catholicism  must  be  modified 
if  it  is  to  survive.  But  the  Church  can  never  part 
with  the  tone  of  authority,  nor  with  the  claim  that, 
however  it  may  be  defined,  the  authority  of  its 

41 


\] 


42    The  Authority  of  the  Preacher 

message  is  supreme.     That  is  the  very  genius  of  an 

evangelical  religion  ;  for  it  declares  that  that  which 

saves  the  world  shall  also  judge  the  world,  and  it 

preaches  the  absolute  right  over  us  of  the  Christ 

who  bought  us — the  active  supremacy  in  conscience 

of  our  moral  redemption.     It  is  the  absence  of  the 

note  of  authority  that  is  the  central  weakness  of  so 

:  many  of  the  churches  ;  and  it  is  the  source  of  their 

failure  to  impress  Society  with  their  message  for  the 

practical  ends  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.     It  is  useless 

to  preach  the  Kingdom  when  we  do  not  carry  into 

I  the  centre  of  life  the  control  of  a  King.     The  first 

^  duty  of  every  soul  is  to  find  not  its   freedom  but 

■  its  Master.     And  the  first  charge  of  every  Church 

is  to  offer,  nay  to  mediate.  Him. 


The  authority  of  the  preacher  was  once  supreme. 
He  bearded  kings,  and  bent  senates  to  his  word. 
He  determined  policies,  ruled  fashions,  and  pre- 
scribed thought.  And  yet  he  has  proved  unable  to 
maintain  the  position  he  was  so  able  to  take.  He 
could  not  insure  against  the  reaction  which  has 
now  set  in  as  severely  as  his  authority  once  did. 
That  reaction  has  long  been  in  force  ;  and  to-day, 
however  great  may  be  his  vogue  as  a  personahty, 
his  opinion  has  so  little  authority  that  it  is  not  only 
ignored  but  ridiculed.  In  that  respect  the  pulpit 
resembles  the  press,  whose  circulation  may  be 
enormous,  while  elections,  and  such  like  events, 
show  that  the  influence  of  its  opinions  is  almost  nil. 


The  Authority  of  the  Preacher  43 

But  between  the  press  and  the  pulpit  there  is  this 
mighty  difference.     The  pulpit  has  a  Word,  the  press 
has  none.     The  pulpit  has  a  common  message  and, 
on  the  strength  of  it,  a  claim,  while  the  press  has  no 
claim  to  anything  but  external  freedom  of  opinion 
and  expression.     The  one  has  a  Gospel  which  is  the 
source  of  its  liberty,  the  other  has  no  Gospel  but 
liberty,  which  in  itself  is  no  Gospel  at  all.     Liberty 
is  only  opportunity  for  a  Gospel.     The  true  Gospels 
not  only  claim  it,  they  create  it.     But,  in  itself,  it 
is  either  the  product  of  a  Gospel,  or  a  means  thereto  ; 
it  is  not  an  end.     It  is  no  more  an  end  than  evolu- 
tion is,  which  is  only  the  process  of  working  out  an 
end   that   the   mere  process   itself  does  not   give, 
Liberty  in  itself  is  not  an  end  ;   and  it  has  only  the 
worth  of  its  end.     The  chief  object  of  the  liberty 
of  the  press  is  facts.      It  must  be  free  to  publish 
facts.      But   the    pulpit    has    not    merely   a   fact 
but  a  Word.     The   press  is  there  for  information, 
or    for    suggestion    at   most,   it    is   not   there   for 
authority  ;    but  the  pulpit  is  there  with  authority  ; 
and  the  news  it  brings  is  brought  for  the  sake  of  the 
authority.     The  press  may  offer  an  opinion  as  to  how 
the  public  should  act,  but  the  pulpit  is  there  with  a 
message  as  to  whom    the  acting  public  must  obey 
and  trust.     The  press  is  an  adviser,  but  the  pulpit 
is  a  prophet ;    the  press  may  have  a  thought,  the 
pulpit  must  have  a  Gospel,  nay  a  command.     If  I 
may  use  press  language,  the  pulpit's  news  is  there 
for  the  sake  of  the  leader,  the  leader  is  not  a  mere 
opinion  about  the  news.      The  Gospels   are  there 


44   The  Authority  of  the  Preacher 

for  the  sake  of  the   Epistles,  for  the  sake  of  the 
Gospel. 
---    Therefore,   the   pulpit   has   an   authority.     If  it 
have  not,  it  is  but  a  chair  and  not  a  pulpit.     It  may 
discourse,  but  it  does  not  preach.     But  preach  it 
must.     It  speaks  with  authority.     Yet  the  autho- 
rity is  not  that  of  the  preacher's  person  ;    it  is  not 
mere  authoritativeness.     For  us  that  goes  without 
saying.     What    does   not    go   unsaid,    what   needs 
saying  is,  that  the  preacher's  authority  is  not  the 
>  authority  even  of  his  truth.      In  the  region  of  mere 
Uruth  there  is  no  authority.     Mere  truth  is  intel- 
;■  lectual,  and  authority  is  a  moral  idea  bearing  not 
upon  behef  but  upon  will  and  faith,  decision  and  com- 
mittal.   (See  Lect.  VIII.)    It  is  not  statements  that 
the  preacher  calls  on  us  to  believe.     It  is  no  scheme 
of  statements.     It  is  not  views.     It  is  not  a  creed 
or  a  theology.     It  is  a  rehgion,  it  is  a  Gospel,  it  is 
an  urgent  God.     In  the  region  of  mere  Theology  we 
may  be  bold  to  say   there  is  no    authority  ;    the 
authority  is  aU  in  the  region  of  rehgion.     The  creed 
of  the  Church  Catholic  should  have  great  prestige, 
but  not  authority  in  the  proper   sense.     Belief,  in 
the    region  of   theology,  is  a  matter   of  truth  or 
truths ;    it  is   science,    simple    or   complex.     And 
science  knows  no  authority.     But  in  the  region  of 
religion  belief  is  faith.     It  is  a  personal  relation.     It 
is  behef  in  a  person  by  a  person.     It  is  self  committal 
to  him.     With  the  heart  man  beUeveth  unto  salva- 
tion.     It  is  a  personal  act  towards  a  person.      It 
is  trust  in  that  person,  and  response  to  the  power  of 


The  Authority  of  the  Preacher   45 

his  act.  It  is  soul  answering  soul,  and  act  act, 
and  choice  choice.  In  science,  knowledge  is  the 
relation  of  a  person  to  a  fact  or  law — to  some- 
thing inferior  to  a  person,  and  therefore  not  his 
authority.  But  in  faith  knowledge  (I  shall  show  j 
later  that  faith  is  an  organ  of  knowledge)  is  the  I 
relation  of  a  person  to  a  person  who  is  Kke  us  yet 
over  us.  It  is  a  moral  relation  of  obedience  and 
authority. 

The  authority  of  the  pulpit  is  thus  a  personal  au- 
thority. Yet  it  is  not  the  authority  of  the  preacher's 
person,  or  even  of  his  office.  His  office  may  demand 
much  more  respect  than  the  fanatics  of  freedom  allow, 
but  it  cannot  claim  authority  in  the  strict  sense. 
The  personal  authority  of  the  pulpit  is  the  authority 
of  the  divine  person  who  is  its  burthen.  It  is  an 
external  authority,  but  it  is  the  authority  of  an 
inward  objective,  living,  saving  God,  before  whose 
visitation  the  prophet  fades  Hke  an  ebbing  voice, 
and  the  soul  of  the  martyr  cries  invisible  from  under 
the  altar  of  the  Cross. 

§ 

I  know  well  the  feelings  which  arise  in  many  at 
the  very  mention  of  words  like  "  authority  "  and 
"  external."  They  are  feelings  of  recalcitrance 
and  resentment — often  very  blind.  We  are  put 
upon  the  defence  of  our  independence.  It  seems 
forgotten  that  the  supreme  thing  in  life  must  be 
uppermost,  not  merely  in  place  but  in  dignity,  not 
merely  in  position  but  in  right,  not  as  a  stratum 


46   The  Authority  of  the  Preacher 

might  be,  but  as  a  throne.  It  is  not  the  soul's  top 
storey  but  the  soul's  suzerain  power.  For  the  soul, 
and  conscience,  the  words  higher  or  lower  mean 
authority  or  they  mean  nothing.  Even  in  the 
celestial  time  when  the  Soul  shall  be  in  complete 
harmony  with  God  the  relation  must  always  be 
worship,  and  therefore  authority  and  obedience.  The 
supreme  thing  is  not  a  weight  that  lies  on  us  but  a 
crown  that  governs  us  and  lifts  us  up  for  ever.  Unless 
we  frankly  adopt  the  positivist  position,  where 
humanity  is  to  itself  not  only  a  law  but  an  object 
of  worship,  there  must  be  an  authority  both  for 
man  and  men.  And  as  for  the  externality  of  it — 
surely  if  there  be  an  authority  it  must  be  external. 
It  must  come  to  us,  and  not  rise  out  of  us.  It 
must  come  down  on  man  and  not  proceed  from 
him.  It  is  a  word  to  our  race,  not  from  it.  The 
content  of  our  conscience  descends  on  us,  it  is  no 
projection  of  ours.  It  were  less  than  conscience 
if  it  were  ;  for  the  law  that  we  made  we  could 
unmake  and  the  order  we  issued  we  could  recall. 
Treat  the  autonomy  of  conscience  as  you  will, 
but  do  not  remove  the  accent  from  the  nomos  to 
the  autos.  If  it  be  a  nomos  it  is  a  product  of  more 
than  ourselves,  more  than  man — it  is  of  God.  Other- 
wise it  would  be  but  a  self-imposed  condition,  from 
which  at  any  time  we  might  be  self-released.  And 
it  could  bind  none,  even  while  it  remained  binding, 
but  him  who  had  imposed  it  on  himself.  And  then 
it  would  not  be  conscience  but  earnest  whim. 
But  then,  it  is  asked,  is  it  not  one  of  the  greatest 


The  Authority  of  the  Preacher    47 

and  surest  results  of  modern  progress  that,  if  there 
be  an  authority,  it  must  be  inward,  it  must  be  in 
the  soul,  it  must  be  by  consent  ?     Yes,  indeed,  that 
IS  one  of  the  greatest  and  best  blessings  of  the  modern 
time.     But    do    you    realize    what    that    means? 
Surely  the  more  inward  it  is  the  more  is  it  external.  ( 
The  more  we  retire  to  our  inner  castle  the  more 
we  feel  the  pressure  of  the   not-ourselves,  and  the 
presence  of  our  Overlord.     The  more  spiritual  we  \ 
are  the  more  we  are  under  law  to  another.     To  I 
mternalize  the  authority  is  to  subtilize  it,  and  there-  t 
fore  to  emphasize  it  ;    for  it  is  the  subtler  realities/ 
that  bear  upon  us  with  the  most  persistent,  ubiqui4 
tons,  and  effective  pressure.     The  more  inward  we  ^ 
go  the  more  external  the  authority  becomes,  just 
because  it  becomes  more  of  an  authority,  and 'more 
unmistakably,  irresistibly  so. 

If  we  were  not  so  Philistine  that  the  most  accurate 
words  seem  pedantic,  the  proper  word  would  be 
not  external  but  objective.  Because  external  has 
come,  for  the  man  in  the  street,  to  mean  outside 
his  own  body,  or  his  own  family,  or  his  own  self- 
will,  his  own  individuality  ;  while  what  we  are  really 
concerned  with  is  outside  our  own  soul,  our  own 
personality.  What  we  are  suffering  from  is  not 
mere  externality  but  unconquered  inwardness,  sub- 
jectivism, individualism,  ending  in  egotism.  It  is 
our  subjectivism  which  gives  externals  their  enslav- 
ing power  over  us.  If  within  us  we  find  nothing 
over  us  we  succumb  to  what  is  around  us.  It  is 
a  cure  for  our  subjectivism  that  we  need,  a  cure 


48    The  Authority  of  the  Preacher 

for  oui  egotism.  And  that  is  to  be  found  in  nothing 
physically  external,  nothing  institutionally  so,  but 
only  in  an  objective,  moral  and  spiritual,  congenial 
yet  antithetic,  in  an  objective  to  the  ego,  yea  to 
the  race,  which  objective  alone  gives  morality 
any  meaning.  Our  suzerain  must  indeed  sit  in 
the  court  of  the  Soul,  but  he  must  be  objective 
there.  What  he  is  he  must  indeed  be  for  the  soul 
— the  soul's  vis-d-vis,  which  must  be  also  soul. 
Soul  is  relative  only  to  soul,  will  to  will.  But, 
while  he  is  not  anything  else  than  soul,  he  is  other 
than  my  soul.  He  is  not  an  other,  but  he  is  my 
other.  He  is  my  objective.  But  objective  he  must 
be,  no  less  than  he  must  be  mine.  He  is  my 
authority,  but  it  is  not  a  heteronomy,  it  is  no 
foreign  rule.  Any  autonomy  of  mine  is  due  to  his 
congenial  power,  to  the  homonomy  of  his  authority, 
to  its  kinship  with  my  soul. 

By  all  means  then  the  divine  authority  must  be 
inward — if  we  are  sure  what  we  mean,  if  we  do  not 
come  to  mean  that  we  are  our  own  authority — which 
I  am  afraid  is  the  popular  version  with  which  the 
preacher  has  to  contend.  The  authority  must  be 
inward,  it  is  true.  The  modern  preacher  must  accept 
that  principle,  and  correct  all  its  risks  of  perversion 
and  debasement.  His  message  must  be  more  and 
more  inward.  But  it  must  be  searchingly  inward. 
That  is  to  say,  it  must  be  inward  with  the  right  of 
search,  as  an  authority ;  and  not  simply  as  a  ser- 
vant, a  suppliant,  an  influence,  an  impression,  a  sensi- 
bility.    It  must  be  above  all  else  a  moral  authority, 


The  Authority  of  the  Preacher    49 

having  right  and  not  mere  influence  or  prestige, 
demanding  action,  obedience  and  sacrifice,  and  not 
merely  echo,  appreciation,  stirrings,  and  thrills.^ 

Thus  when  we  move  the  authority  from  an  exter- 
nal church  or  book  to  the  forum  of  the  conscience, 
when  in  the  face  of  humanity  or  society  we  claim  to 
caU  our  soul  our  own,  we  have  not  ended  the  strife  ; 
we  have  but  begun  one  more  serious  on  another 
plane.  And,  in  many  cases,  we  have  but  opened 
the  gates  of  confusion,  and  let  loose  the  floods  of 
inner  tumult.     The  recognition  of  the  inwardness, 

*  It  must  be  a  moral  authority.  The  grand  etre,  the 
oversoul,  the  totaUty  of  supreme  being,  call  it  what  you 
will,  which  teaches  us  our  place  and  conducts  us  to  it, 
and  so  to  our  blessedness,  must  be  moral  in  its  nature. 
The  law  of  being  is  a  moral  law.  The  nature  of  reality 
is  not  only  experience,  as  the  modem  drift  of  thought 
teaches,  but  it  is  moral  experience.  It  is  a  will's  action. 
It  is  decision.  Now  religion  is  no  exception  to  the  universe 
of  reahty.  That  is  not  what  is  meant  by  its  autonomy. 
Rather  is  it  the  key  to  that  universe.  It  opens  reality. 
It  contains  it.  Religion  is  part  of  our  consciousness.  And 
consciousness  is  primary  ;  it  is  not  deduced  from  any  prior 
reality  of  another  nature.  It  is  part  of  reality.  Reality  has 
therefore  the  nature  of  consciousness.  And  consciousness 
is  moral.  For  it  is  of  the  will  in  its  nature.  We  are  con- 
scious of  ourselves  as  will-powers.  The  great  reahty  is 
thus  a  supreme  will.  And  our  recognition  of  it  is  an  act  of 
moral  submission.  That  is,  it  is  a  relation  of  authority 
and  obedience.  And  the  preacher's  word  of  grace  to  faith 
is  thus  all  of  a  piece  with  the  word  of  the  universe  to 
the  Soul,  with 

Der  ewige  Gesang, 

Der  unser  ganzes  Lebenlang 

Uns  heiser  jede  Stunde  klingt. 
p.p. 


50    The  Authority  of  the  Preacher 

in  many  cases,  seems  to  destroy  the  authority. 
Perhaps  it  does  so  in  most  cases  at  first.  We  are 
too  full  of  ourselves  to  desire  another  to  rule  over 
us.  And  even  when  we  desire  it  there  are  few  who 
are  so  familiar  with  their  inner  selves  as  to  be  able 
to  distinguish  with  any  certainty  the  shepherd's 
voice,  amid  the  gusts  or  sighings  of  their  own  fitful 
selves. 


The  questions  that  arise  are  such  as  these  : — 
I.  What  is  the  inward  authority,  to  which  the 
claims  of  a  Gospel,  or  its  preacher,  must  be  brought  ? 
Is  it  the  natural  conscience,  uneducated,  and  there- 
fore (it  is  said)  unsophisticated  ?  Is  it  the  stalwart 
Naiur-kind  from  the  far  West,  whose  pockets  bulge 
with  Walt  Whitman  ?  Is  it  the  amateur  private  j  udg- 
ment,  so  dear  to  the  sturdy  moralist  of  the  street  ? 
Is  it  a  moral  mother-wit,  sitting  with  a  hair-trigger  at 
the  centre  of  an  individualism  whose  self-confidence 
is  impregnable,  and  passing  its  prompt  verdict 
upon  everything  done  or  devised  ?  There  is  no 
doubt  about  the  popularity  of  this  order  of  ration- 
alism, especially  among  the  more  independent  races, 
and  their  more  unschooled  strata.  It  is  a  claim, 
too,  which  a  democratic  Christianity  does  much  to 
encourage.  The  pushing  tradesman  of  a  small  town 
enters  a  theological  discussion  to  say  that  he  always 
wants  a  straight  answer  to  a  straight  question  ;  and 
he  is  not  going  to  be  cowed  by  the  people  who  under- 
stand it,  or  bent  to  a  theological  popery.    But  that  the 


The  Authority  of  the  Preacher    5  i 

supernatural  eternal  Gospel  should  be  staked  on  an 
appeal  to  the  healthy  and  untutored  natural  con- 
science is  a  view  so  far  outgrown  that  perhaps  it 
need  not  occupy  us  longer.  Sociology  teaches  us 
that  even  the  most  self-sufficient  man  is  not  a  self- 
made  man,  but  he  is  made  by  centuries  of  heredity 
and  ages  of  solidarity.  And  if  Christianity  meant 
healthy-mindedness,  that  itself  would  surely  mean 
something  more  than  the  light  of  nature  or  the 
verdict  of  the  decent  pagan  man.  We  may,  more- 
over, take  it  that  the  authority  of  a  holy  Gospel 
cannot  be  proved  to  the  natural  man.  The  offence 
of  the  Cross  has  not  ceased.  It  must  first  capture 
him  and  make  him  a  supernatural  man. 

§ 
2.  Then,  is  the  adjudicating  faculty  which 
chooses  our  authority  the  natural  conscience 
educated,  when  it  has  in  some  serious  fashion  gone  to 
school  ?  Is  it  the  natural  conscience  refined  ?  Is 
it  the  natural  conscience  stimulated  by  contact  with 
historic  and  imaginative  ideals,  and  thus  developed 
to  a  nicer  tact  of  judging  the  higher  claims  ?  Well, 
no  doubt,  a  moral  teacher  and  hero  like  Socrates 
has  a  rich  and  rare  power  of  rousing  the  conscience, 
and  educating  it  to  approve  ideas  it  once  ignored  or 
condemned.  He  wins  our  admiration  and  trust. 
He  elicits  our  personality.  He  stirs  in  us  a  mind  as 
constant  as  his  own.  He  quickens  also  our  moral 
intelligence,  and  trains  our  moral  discernment. 
And  he  does  so  by  sympathy  and  not  antagonism, 


52    The  Authority  of  the  Preacher 

by  an  imperative  which  is  congenial  and  not  merely 
imperious,  dialectic  and  not  only  dogmatic.  He 
may  rouse  bitter  hostility  but  he  also  rouses  heroic 
friendship,  insight,  imitation,  or  obedience.  Or,  if 
he  do  not  actually  raise  our  self  to  his  own  height, 
at  least  he  stirs  in  us  the  sense  that  we  ought  so  to 
rise,  and  to  become  such  a  soul  in  our  place  and  way. 
A  moral  nature  is  bom,  or  he  leaves  us  morally  more 
than  he  found  us. 

It  is  here  recognized,  you  note,  that  the  appraising 

self  must  be  educated  in  some  due  school ;   it  is  not 

ready  to  our  hand.     The  preacher  would  be  then 

principally  a  formative  pastor,  tutor,  teacher.     He 

is  educative  rather  than  evangelical.     His  method  is 

dialectic  and  maieutic  rather  than  regenerative.    He 

analyses  our  truth,  and  brings  our  best  self  to  light, 

rather  than  creates  a  new  man.     But  is  his  result,  in 

this  conception  of  him,  always  a  success  ?     Does  he 

lay  more  problems  than  he  stirs  ?     Does  he  give  us 

power  to  deal  with  final  questions  and  command  final 

answers  ?    Does  he  plant  us  on  the  rock  of  finahty, 

where  the  problems  range  about  a  base  which  they  can- 

f  not  eat  away  ?    Does  he  not  rather  stir  new  questions 

■  more  urgent  than  the  old  ?     Thus  :    "I  ought  to 

.  rise  to  that  height.     But  how  shall  I  ?     I  know  I 

>  should,  I  do  not  know  how  I  can.     In  this  region 

f  I   feel  an   impotence   I   feel  nowhere  else.     I   can 

master  problems,  but  how  am  I  to  rise  to  tasks,  and 

:  keep  at  their  level  ?     I  am  a  sinful  man.     My  new 

•  ideal  does  as  much  to  oppress  me  as  to  exalt  me,  and 

[often  much  more.     The  more  it  teaches  me  to  see. 


The  Authority  of  the  Preacher    53 

the  less  I  am  able  to  do.  The  more  it  smiles  on  me 
as  my  ideal,  the  less  it  seems  as  if  it  could  ever 
become  mine.  '  It  is  lovely,  but  it  has  no  arms.' 
It  does  not  grasp,  it  does  not  save.  O,  wretched 
man  !  How  shall  my  ideal  become  my  destiny, 
and  my  vision  my  goal  ?  How  can  my  sinful 
self  become  my  true  free  moral  self  ?  I  want  a 
power  to  give  me  not  vision,  nor  truth,  nor  convic- 
tion alone,  but  myself.  Yea,  I  want  rehef  from 
myself.  I  must  be  redeemed  from  myself  into  the  \^ 
moral  freedom  I  have  now  learned  to  crave. 

•* '  O  for  a  man  to  arise  in  me 

That  the  man  I  am  may  cease  to  be.'  '* 

§ 

It  is  not  with  our  moral  freedom,  you  may  mark, 
as  it  is  with  our  ordinary  mental  vision.  Intellec- 
tual progress  takes  what  it  finds  already  to  hand,  and 
builds  on  it.  Thus  each  generation  adds  to  the  great 
reef  which  is  growing  under  the  waves  of  time  to  a 
new  mental  world.  We  take  up  science,  discovery, 
or  invention,  where  our  fathers  left  them.  But  it  is 
otherwise  with  our  moral  selves,  and  especially  with 
our  spiritual  selves.  We  have  to  start  from  the  be- 
ginning, or  very  much  nearer  it  than  the  intellect 
does.  There  is  little  historic  progress  in  the  region 
of  the  elemental  humanities.  Love,  hate,  jealousy, 
valour,  loyalty,  awe,  pity,  or  beauty,  are  substanti- 
ally the  same  for  us  as  they  were  for  Homer  and  his 
age.  Man  is  very  permanent  in  what  most  makes 
him  man.     In  the  case  of  our  central  moral  man. 


54   The  Authority  of  the  Preacher 

for  all  the  latent  furniture  of  heredity,  and  all  the 
long  bias  of  evil,  we  can  say  of  each  soul — 

"He  is  the  first  that  ever  burst 
Into  that  silent  sea." 

What  we  have  with  each  soul  is  rather  a  fresh  case 
than  a  new  development.  And  so  when  God  comes 
to  us  He  brings  more  than  a  mere  extension  of  our 
previous  horizon,  a  supplement  to  nature,  or  a 
development  of  it.  It  is  not  a  mere  enrichment  of 
our  previous  mentahty.  His  is  not  the  touch  which 
unfolds  the  latent  germ.  It  is  not  merely  a  case  of 
sHtting  our  husk,  or  of  eliciting  the  vitality.  It  is 
not  education.  It  is  revelation.  It  is  not  giving 
I  effect  to  our  native  power,  and  enlarging  us  to  the 
■  destined  fulness  of  our  hidden  resource.  It  is  not 
i  the  opulent  expansion  of  our  individuality.  That 
is  all  too  romantic.  It  is  a  fresh  spontaneity  of 
His,  a  new  creation,  a  free  gift.  It  is  a  pure  gift  to  our 
weakness,  our  need,  our  helplessness.  It  is  an 
absolute  salvation,  not  an  aid  to  our  self-salvation. 
Our  receptivity  is  room  rather  than  faculty.  We 
receive  a  new  life  rather  than  gain  a  new  facility. 
There  is  not  an  evolution  so  much  as  a  new  creation. 
Between  man  and  man  it  is  otherwise.  What 
man  does  for  man  is  on  a  basis  of  parity.  He  tries 
to  eUcit  what  is  latent  in  a  common  humanity. 
It  is  give  and  take  on  both  sides.  The  teacher  may 
even  gain  more  than  the  taught  from  acting  upon  him. 
But  it  is  not  so  when  one  of  the  parties  is  God.  It  is 
then  a  relation  of  disparity.  The  Christian  God  at 
least  is  man's  God  in  being  his  Saviour,  i.e.,  in  virtue 


The  Authority  of  the  Preacher    55 

of  His  difference  from  man  rather  than  His  identity. 
Christ  always  stood  with  God  over  against  man. 
The  object  of  God  with  man  is  not  to  ehcit  slumbering 
divinity,  and  kiss  the  sleeping  beauty  into  life. 
Nor  does  He  gain  from  us  as  the  teacher  does  from 
the  taught.  God  needs  none  of  us  as  we  all  need 
Him.  It  is  not  give  and  take  ;  it  is  all  giving  on 
His  part.  In  receiving  anything  from  man  He 
receives  but  what  He  gives,  and  in  His  life  we  live. 
Our  synergist  pride  is  quelled  as  we  realize  that. 
Our  self-satisfaction  has  its  saving  rebuff.  We  are 
no  partners  with  God,  fellow-workers  as  we  may  be. 
Our  best  faith  with  all  its  works  is  purely  the  gift  of 
God,  because  it  is  roused  by  His  one  gift,  Christ. 
He  receives  man  in  no  such  sense  as  man  receives 
Him.  His  work  with  us  is  much  more  than  educa- 
tive, more  than  maieutic.  It  is  paternal,  creative. 
The  conscience  before  Him  is  in  a  state  where 
education  will  not  serve  it.  Merely  develop  sinful 
man,  and  in  spite  of  all  the  good  in  him,  you  only 
have  a  greater  sinner.  The  disparity  of  God  and 
man  is  not  gradual,  it  is  not  a  matter  of  degree. 
And  what  God  has  to  deal  with  is  not  our  relative 
imperfection.  He  does  not  simply  stoop  to  us 
as  we  keep  doing  our  poor  best  to  reach  Him.  He 
does  not  simply  wait  for  us,  and  cheer  us  on  with  a 
tender  remembrance  of  the  time  when  He  was  at 
our  stage  and  felt  the  need  of  a  sympathetic  father 
or  even  brother.  The  gulf  between  us  is  much  more, 
even  than  the  gulf  between  the  creature  and  the  Crea- 
tor.    Great  as  that  distance  might  be  it  does  not  ex- 


56   The  Authority  of  the  Preacher 


elude  communion.  What  ails  us  is  not  limitation  but 
C  transgression,  not  poverty  but  alienation.  It  is  the 
\       breach  of  communion  that  is  the  trouble — the  separa- 

l^ tion,  the   hostility.     We  are  not  His  counterparts 

but  His  antagonists.  There  is  not  only  the  distance, 
between  Creator  and  creature,  father  and  child  in  the 
natural  sense ;  but  there  is  a  vast  and  serious  dis- 
turbance of  even  that  relation.  There  is  a  huge 
dislocation.  There  is  that  in  us  and  in  our  sin  which 
is  in  its  very  essence  intractable  to  all  the  processes 
of  a  reconciling  idea  ;  something  which,  to  the  end, 
by  its  very  nature,  refuses  to  be  taken  up  as  a 
factor  into  the  largest  and  most  comprehensive  pro- 
cession of  divine  action ;  something  which  can 
never  be  utiUzed,  but  can  only  be  destroyed  in  a 
mortal  moral  war  ;  something  which,  if  God  cannot 
kill  it,  must  be  the  death  of  God.  And  as  a  race 
we  are  not  even  stray  sheep,  or  wandering  pro- 
digals merely ;  we  are  rebels  taken  with  weapons 
in  our  hands. 
—  Our  supreme  need  from  God,  therefore,  is  not  the 
education  of  our  conscience,  nor  the  absorption  of 
our  sin,  nor  even  our  reconcilement  alone,  but  our 
redemption.  It  is  not  cheer  that  we  need  but  salva- 
tion, not  help  but  rescue,  not  a  stimulus  but  a 
change,  not  tonics  but  life.  Our  one  need  of  God 
is  a  moral  need  in  the  strictest  hoUest  sense.  The 
best  of  nature  can  never  meet  it.  It  involves  a  new 
nature,  a  new  world,  a  new  creation.  It  is  the  moral 
need,  not  to  be  transfigured  but  to  be  saved.  And 
the  inner  authority  is  the  power  which  does  that. 


The  Authority  of  the  Preacher    57 

It  not  merely  aids  us,  nor  enlightens  us,  nor 
kindles  us,  nor  presents  us  with  an  ideal,  or  a  con- 
tagion, or  a  sympathy  ;  but  it  redeems  us  by  the 
destruction  of  our  guilt,  the  neutralizing  of  the  evil 
we  have  done,  and  the  hallowing  against  us  of  His 
own  holy  name.  It  is  the  authority  of  a  Redeemer, 
of  one  who  is  the  organ  to  us  of  a  new  world.  It 
is  a  new  world  in  total  contrast  with  the  old,  yet 
interpenetrating  it  ;  underlying  it,  yet  not  imbedded 
in  it  hke  a  germ,  but  haunting  it  and  urgent  at 
every  point,  and  at  one  point  leaping  to  light  and 
final  effect. 

§ 
3.  This  authority  of  the  Redeemer  is  the  final 
authority  in  Christianity.  And,  observe,  I  do  not 
say  the  authority  of  Christ,  but  the  authority  of 
Christ  as  Redeemer,  as  our  new  Creator,  the  authority 
of  Christ's  person  as  wholly  gathered  up  and  com- 
pletely expressed  in  the  Cross,  its  work,  and  its 
Gospel.  He  is  our  peace  not  in  His  person  alone, 
for  that  were  too  quiescent,  exemplary,  and  aesthetic 
— but  in  the  mediation  which  is  the  energy,  act,  and 
effect  of  His  person  for  ever.  I  certainly  do  not  mean 
the  authority  of  Christ's  teaching,  supreme  as  that  is 
over  all  other  teaching  on  spiritual  things.  Nor  do 
I  mean  the  authority  connected  with  the  magnetism, 
the  impressiveness  of  His  personality— the  authorita- 
tiveness  of  it.  Still  less  do  I  mean  the  authority  of 
such  of  His  beliefs  as  were  solid  with  the  naive 
religious  consciousness  of  His  land  and  age— as  for 


58    The  Authority  of  the  Preacher 

instance,  His  references  to  the  Davidic  authorship  of 
a  Psalm.  I  mean  His  authority  in  the  true  region 
where  the  word  authority  has  its  ultimate  meaning, 
in  the  region  of  personal  interaction,  in  the  moral, 
the  religious  region  alone,  the  region  where  grace 
acts  and  faith  answers,  the  evangehcal  region  and  not 
the  theological.  In  the  theological  region  I  have  said 
there  is,  properly  speaking,  no  authority — author- 
ity being  predicable  not  of  a  truth  in  theology,  but  of 
a  theological  person  whose  action  on  my  person 
makes  my  religion.  This  is  the  authority  realized 
by  the  most  classic  types  of  the  Christian  experience 
— the  authority,  not  of  the  conscience  however  en- 
Hghtened,  but  of  Christ  in  the  conscience  ;  and  in 
the  conscience,  not  as  its  oracle  simply,  or  its  needle, 
but  as  its  redeemer,  regenerator,  and  new  creator. 
The  seat  of  authority  is  not  the  enhghtened  conscience 
but  the  redeemed  and  regenerate. 

Thus  alone  do  we  do  justice  to  moral  realism. 
It  is  a  moral  authority  that  concerns  us,  I  have 
said.  That  means,  it  is  the  authority  for  men  not  in 
some  abstract  and  conceivable  position,  nor  in  some 
primeval  perfection  which  never  was  real,  but  for 
historic  man  in  his  actual  moral  state ;  which  is  a  state 
not  of  imperfection  only  but  of  impotence  for  holi- 
ness, and  not  of  impotence  alone  but  of  collective  guilt. 
The  more  we  realize  the  solidarity  of  man  the  more 
his  moral  condition  becomes  a  collectivism  of  guilt. 
That  is  to  say,  the  moral  authority  must  be  in 
relation  to  guilt,  and  to  the  guilt  of  the  race  ;  it 
must  be  more  than  ethical,  it  must  be  a  religious 


The  Authority  of  the  Preacher    59 

authority,  a  saving  one,  an  evangelical  one.  It  is 
an  authority  acting  not  merely  on  our  moral  per- 
ception but  on  our  moral  perdition — at  least  on  our 
moral  crisis — and  acting  by  way  of  redemption, 
and  not  merely  by  way  of  injunction,  nor  by  way 
of  impression,  nor  by  way  of  prestige.  And  the 
redemption  thus  demanded  by  our  actual  case  is  not 
merely  eschatological,  at  the  far  consummate  end  of 
things.  Nor  is  it  merely  ethical,  in  the  way  of  promot- 
ting  our  moral  development  and  improvement.  The 
chief  criterion  of  Christianity  is  not  its  ethical  results 
and  amendments.  These  are  but  the  consequences 
of  it,  the  fruits  of  its  reconciliation.  It  is  evan- 
gelical in  this  way — that  it  begins  with  reconciliation. 
It  is  the  destruction  by  God  in  Christ  of  sin's  guilt 
and  sin's  distrust,  and  sin's  blocking  of  the  sky. 
Such  is  our  central  case  and  need.  Whatever,  there- 
fore, meets  that  is  the  final  and  sole  authority  of 
our  race,  from  which  all  that  claims  authority  must 
deduce.  Set  that  right  in  every  man  by  what  sets 
right  also  the  race,  and  right  views  and  right 
relations  will  follow  as  the  night  the  day.  The 
great  creed  and  the  great  millennium  must  be  alike 
confessions  of  the  Hving  faith  which  is  our  contact 
with  Him  who  sits  on  the  throne  and  makes  all 
things  new  and  true. 

§ 

But  this  is  to  say  that  the  final  authority  in 
human  affairs  is,  after  all,  the  preacher'  s  authority. 
It  is  on  this  authority  alone  that  the  preacher  must 


6o    The  Authority  of  the  Preacher 

rely;  and  the  preacher's  is  the  only  function  that 
must  rely  on  this  authority  alone.     He,  of  all  men, 

"~~-is  most  dependent  on  his  message.  He  is  depen- 
dent on  his  personality  only  as  his  Gospel  makes 
it,  and  as  it  shows  forth  the  Gospel.  You  hear 
it  said,  with  a  great  air  of  religious  common  sense, 
that  it  is  the  man  that  the  modem  age  demands 
in  the  pulpit,  and  not  his  doctrine.  It  is  the  man 
that  counts,  and  not  his  creed.  But  this  is  one  of 
those  shallow  and  plausible  half-truths  which  have 
the  success  that  always  follows  when  the  easy, 
obvious     underpart    is     blandly     offered    for    the 

—  arduous  whole.  No  man  has  any  right  in  the 
pulpit  in  virtue  of  his  personality  or  manhood  in 
itself,  but  only  in  virtue  of  the  sacramental  value  of 
his  personality  for  his  message.  We  have  no  business 
to  worship  the  elements,  which  means,  in  this  case,  to 
idohse  the  preacher.  (Fitly  enough  in  Rome  the 
deification  ^  of  the  priest  continues  the  transubstan- 
tiation  of  the  elements.)  To  be  ready  to  accept  any 
kind  of  message  from  a  magnetic  man  is  to  lose  the 
Gospel  in  mere  impressionism.  It  is  to  sacrifice  the 
moral  in  rehgion  to  the  aesthetic.  And  it  is  fatal  to 
the  authority  either  of  the  pulpit  or  the  Gospel.  The 
Church  does  not  live  by  its  preachers,  but  by  its 
Word. 

§ 
The    last    authority,    then,    is    the    evangelical. 

^  "Eritis  sicut  dii."  Cp.  Gen.  iii.  5  with  the  Catechism  0) 
Trent,  II.  7.  2  :  "  Sacerdotes  non  solum  angeU  sed  dii  appel- 

lantur." 


The  Authority  of  the  Preacher   6i 

For  what  is  our  authority  but  that  to  which  we  are 
not  our  own  ?  And  that  is  what  we  find  absolutely 
in  our  evangelical  faith.  Its  appeal  is  not  to  the 
natural  conscience,  individual,  amateur,  and  self- 
sufficient.  Nor  is  it  to  the  enlightened  conscience 
of  civilization,  cultivated  by  all  the  moral  thought 
and  discipline  of  history,  society,  or  imagination. 
But  it  is  to  the  actual  conscience  of  the  race,  to  the 
conscience  taken  as  we  find  it,  to  the  conscience  as 
sinful  and  redeemed,  the  conscience  struck  into 
self-despair,  horrified  with  the  world's  moral  tragedy, 
and  plucked  into  salvation  by  God's  and  man's  last 
moral  crisis  in  the  Cross,  where  the  greatest  tragedy 
turns  the  greatest  triumph  of  all.  The  appeal  is  to  a 
conscience  in  such  a  state  that  it  must  be  saved,  and 
re-empowered  ;  and  saved  by  no  mere  contact  with 
God,  but  only  by  a  moral  act  of  God  at  least  as  ener- 
getic as  the  universe,  as  real,  historic,  and  tragic  as  the 
sin,  i.e.  by  God's  holy  reaction  of  grace,  of  invading, 
mastering,  regenerating  grace.  The  inmost  authority 
being  moral  is  the  most  objective  thing  we  know ; 
speaking  to  and  through  the  conscience,  and  to  a 
conscience  made  capable  by  grace  of  appraising  and 
appropriating  in  a  way  impossible  to  the  natural  self. 
It  emerges  and  wells  up  under  psychological  condi- 
tions, but  it  is  not  a  psychological  product.  It 
may  be  subliminal  rather  than  supernal,  but  it  is  not 
ourselves,  it  is  objective.  And  nothing  is  so  objec- 
tive, so  authoritative  as  that  which  at  our  inmost 
moral  centre  saves  us  from  ourselves.  The  thing  most 
immanent  in  us  is  a  transcendent  thing,  nay,  a  des- 


62    The  Authority  of  the  Preacher 

cendant  thing.  The  more  immanent  the  forum,  the 
more  objective  and  invasive  do  we  feel  the  redemption. 
But  we  must  be  redeemed,  ere  we  reahze  this.  To  the 
natural  man  it  is  foolishness.  He  finds  all  salvation  to 
be  but  the  great  recuperative  effort  of  man's  inalien- 
able divinity,  his  indefectible  essential  identity  with 
God,  which  is  the  only  true  eternal  life.  And  the 
act  of  saving  grace  is  nothing  but  our  own  act  of 
faith  in  our  profound  and  innate  selves.  Against 
all  which  I  would  say,  in  a  word,  we  have  to  be 
redeemed  into  the  power  of  appreciating  redemption, 
and  appropriating  the  greatest  moral  act  man  knows 
— the   Cross. 

Thus  we  can  never  settle  the  question  of  a  final 
moral  authority  (which  is  the  last  authority  of  all) 
except  in  the  region  where  will  meets  will  and 
faith  takes  home  God's  act  of  grace.  It  is  quite 
insoluble  in  the  region  where  cosmic  process  takes 
the  place  of  moral  action,  or  in  the  region  where  con- 
science responds  but  to  an  ideal,  or  reason  accepts 
truth.  It  is  not  with  truth  we  have  to  do  but  reahty. 
And  reahty  is  a  moral  thing,  a  matter  of  a  person, 
and  his  will,  and  his  act.  Life  in  its  reahty  is  a  great 
act  and  choice,  and  not  a  long  process.  And  there- 
fore, the  authority  is  not  a  standard,  as  a  truth,  or 
an  architecture  of  truths,  might  be.  It  is  a  living 
law.  And  a  living  law,  not  in  the  sense  of  a  historic 
institution,  acting  as  the  custodian  of  truth,  and  the 
trustee  of  its  development.  It  is  a  living,  holy, 
historic  God  and  Saviour  witnessed,  preached,  and 
truly  conveyed,  by  the  whole  Church,  but  dispensed 


The  Authority  of  the  Preacher    63 

by  none.  It  is  a  living  and  holy  God  in  much 
more  than  presence  (which  were  mere  mysticism). 
It  is  God  in  power,  in  moral  power,  in  historic 
and  sempiternal  action.  It  is  a  God  real  in  a 
historic  act,  which  is  perpetual  in  its  energy, 
achieved  at  one  point  but  throbbing  at  every  other, 
a  timeless  act,  parallel  with  every  human  action, 
and  mutually  involuted  with  it  (if  one  may  so  say), 
but  involved  in  the  way  of  struggle  and  conquest 
rather  than  mere  permeation — an  Eternal  Cross 
rather  than  a  universal  Spirit.  It  is  this  act 
that  is  prolonged  as  the  arduous  emergence  through 
history  of  that  Kingdom  of  God,  which,  for  all  its 
immanence,  is  much  more  a  gift  to  history  than 
its  product.  The  last  authority  is  God  in  His 
supreme,  saving  act  of  grace  to  mankind  in  Christ's 
Cross,  which  is  the  power  of  God  addressed  to  what 
is  at  once  the  power  and  the  weakness  in  us,  our  will, 
conscience,  and  total  moral  self.  Our  last  authority 
is  something  we  can  only  obey  by  subjugation, 
reconciliation,  and  worship,  and  not  by  mere  assent. 
It  is  that  saving  act  of  God  which  makes  all  our  best 
moral  action  possible.  It  is  an  invasion  of  us,  how- 
ever inward,  it  is  not  an  emergence  from  us  ;  nor  is 
it  merely  the  stroke  upon  our  hard  shell  which 
releases  our  innate  divinity.  It  is  an  invasion, 
creative  more  than  tonic,  redeeming  rather  than 
releasing,  putting  into  the  Soul  a  new  mainspring 
and  not  disentangling  the  old  which  had  caught. 

But,  invasion  as  it  is,  it  is  yet  no  assault  on  the 
sanctuary  of  our  personal  freedom.   We  are  mastered 


64   The  Authority  of  the  Preacher 

but  not  concussed.  For  it  is  the  one  influence,  the 
one  authority,  that  gives  us  to  ourselves,  and  puts 
us  in  possession  of  our  moral  freedom.  The  true 
freedom  of  man  springs  from  the  holy  sovereignty 
of  God,  which  we  only  know  in  Christ,  in  redeeming 
action.  There  our  freedom  has  its  charter  and  not 
its  doom.  Even  if  we  started  psychologically  free, 
the  result  of  the  choice  of  evil  is  to  impair  freedom  ; 
and  an  impaired  freedom  goes  on  to  a  destroyed  free- 
dom. Who  doeth  sin  is  the  slave  of  sin.  But  God's 
sovereignty  is  redemption.  He  is  never  so  sovereign 
as  there.  He  is  never  so  absolute  as  in  making  free- 
dom. Redemption  is  not  a  second  best  sovereignty, 
in  the  room  of  a  best  of  all  forever  lost.  It  is  a  deliver- 
ance which  makes  us  choose  Supreme  good.  And 
to  choose  good  is  to  be  free  ;  while  to  be  good  without 
choice  is  neither  goodness  nor  freedom.  To  choose 
good  is  not  like  choosing  evil.  It  is  not  immaterial 
to  our  freedom  what  we  choose  so  long  as  we  are 
choosers.  If  we  choose  evil,  our  very  choice  enslaves 
us.  But  if  it  be  good  we  choose  we  acquire  our- 
selves and  our  freedom.  And  if  we  choose  good  it 
can  only  mean  that  we  choose  it,  not  as  our  ally,  but 
as  our  sovereign.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  choosing  God 
and  God's  choice.  And  God's  authoritative  choice 
of  us  is  a  choice  into  life  and  therefore  liberty.  His 
sovereign  choice  of  us  is  choosing  us  to  choose  good  and 
enlarge  our  freedom.  The  authority  of  our  Redeemer 
then  does  not  concuss  our  personality — as  an  author- 
ity would  do  which  was  institutional,  impersonal, 
external  in  that  sense,  like  a  church,  or  even  a  book. 


The  Authority  of  the  Preacher    65 

For  the  authority  of  our  Redeemer  over  our  person 
is  a  personal  authority.  And  the  redemption  itself 
is  the  greatest  moral  act  of  existence  ;  and  therefore 
it  is  the  freest  act.  Therefore  also  it  is  the  act 
most  creative  of  freedom,  and  therefore  most  authori- 
tative for  it.  Our  inchoate  personality  bows  herein 
to  something  more  personal  than  itself,  and  not  less, 
something  not  less  spiritual  but  more,  something  in 
which  it  comes  to  itself.  The  authority  as  redemp- 
tive is  a  living  power,  person,  and  act,  revealing, 
making,  giving  freedom.  It  is  the  holy  and  com- 
plete person,  creating  personality.  It  is  not  a  truth, 
nor  an  ideal,  nor  an  institution,  with  their  external  and 
aesthetic  effect,  but  it  is  a  personal  act,  the  eternal 
act  of  an  eternal  person,  with  all  the  moral  effect  due 
to  that.  As  a  redeeming  authority  it  says,  "  Be  free 
and  obey."     It  does  not  say,  "  Obey  and  be  free." 

§ 

Thus,  if  the  classic  religion  is  Christianity,  the 
classic  type  of  Christianity  is  the  experience  of 
moral  redemption  and  not  merely  ethical  reform. 
Or  rather  it  is  the  experience  of  a  redeemer.  Because 
it  is  not  the  sense  of  the  experience  that  is  the  main 
matter,  but  the  source  of  the  experience,  and  its 
content.  It  is  not  our  experience  we  are  conscious 
of — that  would  be  self-conscious  piety — but  it  is 
Christ.  It  is  not  our  experience  we  preach,  but 
the  Christ  who  comes  in  our  experience.  We 
preach  not  ourselves,  but  Christ. 


66   The  Authority  of  the  Preacher 


4.  Christ,  I  have  said,  is  the  source  of  our  experi- 
ence.   Let  me,  in  addressing  preachers,  dwell  on  that. 
The    age  in  which    we  live  shows  a  singular   con- 
junction  in   its   return   to  the   historic  Christ,  on 
the    one    hand,  and  its    devotion  to  a  subjective 
type  of  religion,  on  the  other.     Its    allegiance    is 
distracted    between    the    historic    Christ    and    the 
Christian    spirit — meaning    thereby    the    Christian 
style,  manner,   ethic,  or  temper — between  Christ's 
person    and    the     Christian     principle.       At    one 
moment   it  pursues   its   quest   for   a  biography   of 
Christ ;    at    another  it  says    that   this   were   but 
the  Christ  according  to  perishable,  passing  flesh  ;  and 
it  devotes  itself  therefore  to  the  worship  and  culture 
of  a  perennial  principle  of  which  Christ   was  but 
the  supreme  expression.     And  faith  then  becomes  a 
devout  and  altruistic  frame  of  mind,  a  subjectivism, 
instead  of  an  act    diffused  through  life,  a  life-act 
of  self-committal  into    Christ's  hands  and  Christ's 
Act  of  Grace.     Attention  is  withdrawn   from  the 
r  contents  of  faith  to  the  mood  of  faith.     If  we  press 
I  for  attention  to  the  content  of  faith  we  are  ruined 
I  by  the  charge  of  theology.     For  the  mere  temper 
\  of  faith  is  comparatively  indifferent  to  its  theologi- 
|;  cal  veritable  content.     Let  us  have  sweetness  and 
I  charity  at  any  cost  to  reality.      And  its  machinery 
I'  works  whether  you  drop  into  the  slot  the  legitimate 
'   metal  or  an  iron  disc. 

Well,  you  can  have  no  adequate  Christ  without 


The  Authority  of  the  Preacher    67 

theology  when  you  turn  seriously  to  realize  or  explain 
Him.  But  Christ  is  not  there  simply  as  the  theological 
content  of  faith.  That  would  not  give  Him  His 
authority.  He  is  not  there  simply  as  the  substance 
of  our  belief,  nor  simply  as  the  object  of  faith.  He 
is  there,  above  all,  as  the  standing  source,  nay,  the 
creator  of  our  faith.  This  is  where  our  sense  of 
communion  with  Christ  differs  by  a  world  from  any 
alleged  converse  with  Virgin  or  Saint.  They  are  at 
most  but  the  helpers,  and  not  the  fountain,  of  our 
faith.  If  our  Christian  experience  tell  us  anything, 
it  is  not  about  ourselves  in  the  first  place,  nor  about 
our  creed,  but  about  Christ.  And  it  tells  us  of  Him 
as  the  Giver  of  faith,  the  source,  the  creator  of  the 
experience.  That  is  what  is  meant  by  saying  that 
our  very  faith  is  the  gift  of  God.  It  cannot  be 
worked  up  by  us,  nor  by  any  one  working  at  us. 
It  is  evoked  by  contact  with  Christ,  who  is  the  gift 
of  God.  That  is  why  we  must  preach  Christ,  and  not 
about  Christ,  why  we  must  set  the  actual  constrain- 
ing Christ  before  people,  and  not  coax  or  bully  people 
into  decision.  If  we  put  the  veritable  Christ  before 
them  He  will  rouse  the  faith  before  they  know 
where  they  are.  Our  faith  says,  then,  that  He  is  the 
Creator  of  our  faith.  He  is  not  simply  its  datum. 
You  do  not  simply  explain  your  faith  by  a  historic,  or 
a  psychological  reference  to  Christ  as  postulate. 
You  do  not  use  Christ  to  account  for  your  faith,  in 
a  reflective,  dialectic,  hypothetic  way.  Your  faith  is 
faith  in  Him  as  acting,  rousing  your  faith,  creating 
it,  and  not  merely  receiving  it.     In  your  faith  you 


68    The  Authority  of  the  Preacher 

f  "are  more  conscious  and  sure  of  Him  than  you  are  ot 
I  your  faith.  For  your  faith,  you  well  know,  may 
I  fail  Him,  but  you  know  still  better  that  He  will 
;■•  not  fail  your  faith.  And  you  are  more  conscious 
and  sure  of  Him,  as  the  source  and  cause  of  your 
I  experience,  than  you  are  of  the  experience  itself, 
■;  which  you  forget  to  think  of.  The  very  apostles 
never  asked  us  to  believe  their  experience,  nor  to 
believe  on  the  ground  of  it,  but  to  believe  with 
them  in  Christ.  What  your  experience  tells  you  is 
that  both  the  frame  of  mind  and  its  stateable  contents 
were  produced,  and  are  produced,  by  Him  and  His 
act.  He,  as  the  creator  of  your  faith,  is  more  real  to 
you  than  the  fabric  of  your  faith,  or  the  sense  of  it. 
He  is  not  behind  your  faith  in  the  sense  of  being  a 
datum  which  you  must  assume  for  it,  and  which 
one  day  you  will  verify.  But  he  is  realized  in  your 
faith  as  its  effective  cause  and  permanent  reality 
That  is  in  the  very  definition  of  faith.  He  is  not  only 
objective  there,  He  is  initiative.  He  is  known  not 
simply  in  the  experience,  but  as  the  creator  of  the 
experience.  He  is  not  simply  reached  by  faith, 
He  brings  it  to  pass.  It  is  the  very  life  and  move- 
ment of  the  faith  to  worship  Him  as  its  creator. 
That  is  faith,  it  does  not  flow  from  faith.  Faith 
does  not  imply  Him,  it  answers  Him.  Faith  is 
nothing  else  than  myself  believing.  And  it  is  Him- 
self I  meet.  And  it  is  me  He  saves  and  re-creates.  I 
do  not  infer  Him,  therefore,  from  my  faith.  My  faith 
is  myself,  my  moral  self,  finding  Him,  and  finding 
that  He  first  found  me.     It  does  not  simply  bear 


The  Authority  of  the  Preacher   69 

upon  Him,  it  flows  from  Him.  And  our  Christian 
experience  is  not  merely  an  appreciation,  or  even 
an  appropriation,  of  Christ,  but  the  Hfe  action  of 
Christ  in  us,  and  His  action  as  Redeemer  appropriating 
us.  We  are  "  potential  Christs  "  only  in  this  sense 
— not  that  we  grow  into  Christs,  but  that  by  faith 
Christ  is  formed  and  grows  in  us,  and  we  live  not, 
but  Christ  lives  in  us.  And  in  this  capacity  He  is 
our  one  authority,  to  whom  we  are  not  our  own. 
And  the  preaching  of  our  faith  is  what  I  venture 
to  call  the  prolongation  of  His  action  and  His  Gospel. 
Our  experience  of  Christ  is  thus  quite  different 
from  our  experience  of  an  objective  world.  Our 
moral  sense  of  an  agent,  and  that  agent  a  Redeemer, 
is  a  different  thing  from  the  inference  or  postulate 
of  an  objective  world  behind  sense  to  account  for  our 
impressions.  That  may  be  a  cause  but  this  is  a 
Creator.  When  the  objective  announces  itself  as  a 
heart  and  will,  which  not  only  chooses,  or  influences, 
me,  but  saves  me,  then  the  response  of  my  active 
will,  of  myself  as  a  person,  is  a  different  thing  from 
the  commonsense  that  instinctively  places  an  object 
behind  passive  sensation.  The  relation  of  a  cause 
to  a  sensation  is  not  analogous  to  the  relation  of  a 
person  to  a  person.  And  our  relation  to  Christ  is 
no  less  different  from  our  attitude  to  an  auxiliary 
presence,  like  Saint  or  Virgin,  which  aids  but  does 
not  redeem,  and  which  is  not  my  master  because 
I  owe  it  something  much  less  than  my  eternal 
self 


yo   The  Authority  of  the  Preacher 


These  are  not  metaphysical  considerations,  how- 
ever trying  they  may  be  to  our  loose  religiosity, 
but  they  are  positive,  practical  and  experienced 
religion  taking  itself  in  earnest,  bringing  itself  to 
book,  taking  a  census  of  itself.  I  but  make  exphcit 
in  the  statement  what  is  implicit  in  the  experienced 
fact,  and  present  there  though  all  unknown.  And 
its  testimony  is  that  Christ  does  not  stand  as  the 
crowning,  stimulating,  releasing  instance  of  the 
best  that  is  immanent  in  man.  He  is  not  the  divine 
virtuoso,  who  thoroughly  understands  his  human 
orchestra,  and  can  bring  out  of  it  what  none  else  can. 
He  is  not  the  sublime  divine  comrade,  full  of  endless 
cheer,  because  he  has  been  through  it  aU  before 
us,  and  has  come  out  on  the  other  side.  He  is  not 
the  herald  of  God's  forgiveness  for  sins  that  but 
hamper  our  development  or  soil  the  surface  without 
tainting  our  core.  But,  for  all  the  classic  Christian 
experience,  from  the  New  Testament  down,  He 
is  the  Redeemer  of  our  total  personality  from  its 
radical  recalcitrance  to  God's  will,  and  from  its 
impotence  to  obey  it,  even  when  it  has  moved  to 
desire  it.  The  natural  man  is  a  nisus  against  God, 
against  a  God  he  cannot  but  feel.  And  the  world's 
treatment  of  Christ  shows  that  the  higher  and  better 
God's  will  for  us  is,  the  more  man  repudiates,  rebels, 
and  fights  against  it.  The  authority  which  is  really 
in  question  is  the  will  of  God.  It  is  personal.  And 
that  is  why  our  personality  resents  it.     We  yield 


The  Authority  of  the  Preacher    7  i 

far  more  readily  to  a  process  or  an  idea,  because  it 
makes  no  such  demand  on  our  self-will  as  the  will 
of  a  personal  God  does.  There  are  many  attractions 
for  self-love,  vanity,  or  ambition,  in  Monism  with 
its  vague  lack  of  moral  realism  and  severe  impera- 
tive. Everything  leaves  us  with  a  subtle  sense  of 
superiority  and  self-satisfaction  but  the  Will  of 
God,  which  breaks  us  to  our  true  peace.  And  the 
only  means  of  reducing  us  to  acknowledge  the  place 
and  practicability  of  that  will  is  by  Redemption. 
To  assert  it  was  useless  ;  to  magnify  it  failed.  It 
had  itself  to  redeem  us  in  Christ,  and  to  bring  such 
a  remission  of  past  guilt  as  should  change  our  total 
attitude  towards  self  and  God,  give  us  a  confidence 
in  self  despair,  bring  us  into  loving  communion  for 
life,  and  confer  on  us  the  Gift  of  Life  Eternal. 

There  is  but  one  Authority  therefore  for  human 
life — that  hfe  being  what  it  is.  It  is  its  historic 
Redeemer,  in  the  one  critical  and  creative  moral  act 
of  its  history.  AU  the  amateur  philosophandering 
of  the  hour  is  fumbling  to  escape  from  a  historic, 
positive,  evangelical  Christianity,  and  to  preserve 
before  God  a  remnant  of  self-respect,  self-possession, 
and  selfwill.  But  the  prime  content  both  of  Chris-  " 
tian  and  human  experience  is  the  Saviour,  trium- 
phant, not  merely  after  the  Cross,  but  upon  it.  This 
cross  is  the  message  that  makes  the  preacher.  And 
I  have  tried  to  make  good  what  I  said  at  the  outset 
of  this  lecture,  that  the  preacher  is  the  organ  of  the 
only  real  and  final  authority  for  mankind.  As  to 
creed  in  its  form  and  detail,  if   all  men  accepted 


72    The  Authority  of  the  Preacher 

that  practical  and  absolute  authority  for  their 
moral  selves  there  would  be  no  lack  of  either  an 
inspiration  or  a  standard  for  their  belief,  thought, 
action,  or  affection,  throughout.  An  authority  abso- 
lute in  our  experienced  religion  wiU  marshal  to  its  place 
by  an  inevitable  moral  psychology,  our  theology, 
philosophy,  and  politics  alike.  The  King  alone 
can  make  the  Kingdom.  The  Christ  of  our  faith 
will  organize  our  life.  The  power  that  makes  the 
soul  will  make  the  Church.  What  makes  the  faith 
will  make  and  remake  the  creed.  And  the  Gospel 
that  made  the  book  wiU  bless  the  book,  and  give  us 
the  freedom  in  it  that  it  gave  us  through  it.  If  the 
son  make  us  free  we  shall  be  free  throughout,  and 
free  indeed.  To  be  the  slave  of  Christ  is  to  be  the 
master  of  every  fate.  And  this  is  as  true  for 
Humanity  as  it  is  for  every  soul. 


THE    PREACHER  AND    HIS 
CHURCH,     OR     PREACHING    AS 
WORSHIP 


Ill 

The    Preacher  and    His  Church,   oi 
Preaching    as   Worship 

I  HAVE  been  complaining  (in  the  close  of  my 
first  lecture)  that  Christians  do  not  know  their 
Bible.  But  even  if  they  did,  the  preacher  would 
still  be  at  a  loss  in  another  way.  He  has  to  face  the 
modern  man's  neglect  of  the  Church  no  less  than  of 
the  Bible.  He  meets  impatient  reformers  who  take 
a  tone  of  superior  realism,  and  coarsely  speak  of 
Church  life  and  the  edification  of  believers  as  a 
mere  "  coddling  of  the  Saints,"  He  lives  in  an  age 
when  the  Kingdom  of  God  engrosses  more  Christian 
interest  than  the  Church  of  Christ,  and  Christian 
people  are  more  devoted  to  the  busy  effort  of  getting 
God's  will  done  on  earth  than  to  the  deep  repose 
of  communion  with  God's  finished  will  in  Christ. 
It  is  characteristic  of  much  of  the  Christian  activity 
of  the  last  half-century  that  it  aims  not  so  much 
at  a  Christocracy,  where  Christ  has  a  household  and 
is  master  of  it,  as  at  a  Christolatry — a  mere  Xarpda 
of  Christ,  where  he  is  worshipped  mainly  through 
the  service  of  the  public.  It  is  needless  to  point 
out  to  the  student  of  the  New  Testament  how 
flatly  this  contradicts  its  genius.     And  it  is  useless 

76 


76   The  Preacher  and  his  Church 

to  urge  the  point  with  those  who  treat  the  New 
Testament  as  archaeology. 

Some  of  us  who  are  greatly  in  sympathy  with 
these  churchless  efforts,  like  the  Salvation  Army, 
may  yet  believe  that  if  they  became  the  ruling  type 
their  end  would  be  lost.  We  may  believe  that,  by  the 
will  of  Christ,  it  is  only  through  a  real  Church,  truly 
Christianized,  that  Humanity  can  be  served  and  saved 
for  the  Kingdom.  We  may  feel  that  the  love  of 
Humanity  could  not  survive  apart  from  not  only 
our  love  of  Christ,  but  also  from  the  personal  com- 
munion with  Christ  in  a  Church  which  feeds  that 
love.  The  (piXavOptoTvia  is  only  possible  through  the 
(f)i\a8e\<f>ia.  Do  good  to  all  men,  but  especially  to 
those  that  are  of  the  household  of  faith.  Our  fellow 
Christians  have  claims  on  us  that  may  precede  those 
of  our  fellow  men.  The  Communion  of  saints  is 
more  to  God  than  the  enthusiasm  of  Humanity. 
The  neighbour,  in  the  New  Testament,  is  not  the 
same  as  the  brother.^  The  brotherhood  of  the  New 
Testament  is  indeed  meant  to  cover  the  race  at  last, 
but  it  is  the  brotherhood  of  Christian  faith  and  love, 
not  of  mankind.  The  victory  which  overcomes 
the  world  is  not  humane  love  but  Christian  faith. 
It  is  won  not  by  the  natural  heart  but  by  the  re- 
creating Cross.  The  goats  in  the  parable  were 
condemned  not  for  being  of  the  world  ;  for  they  were 
a  part  of  the  Church  ;  they  were  not  wolves  or 
dogs.    But  they  were  false  to  the  love  which  makes 

^  This   point   would   richly   repay   working   out  in  the 
interests  of  a  true  Social  Christianity. 


or  Preaching  as  Worship       77 

the  Church,  the  love  which  crowns  true  faith  in 
Christ  with  kindness  to  the  needy  ones  of  the 
sacred  flock.  The  tragedy  of  the  race  is  too  awful 
and  sordid  for  any  salvation  that  is  not  con- 
stantly fed  by  the  Saviour  ever  rising  through 
His  community  from  His  Cross  and  grave.  Devoted 
men  and  women,  who  go  on  now  by  the  impulse 
from  centuries  of  the  cross,  would  break  down  under 
the  horrible  conditions  of  life  where  it  most  needs 
saving,  if  the  habit  of  a  faith  and  fraternity  bred  in 
the  Church  alone  were  to  die  out. 

Many  of  us  realize  that.  But  great  numbers  of 
people,  even  Christian  people,  do  not  realize  it. 
They  call  roughly  upon  the  preacher  to  spend  less 
time  and  concern  upon  maturing  the  converted, 
or  edifying  comfortable  believers  ;  and  they  urge 
him  to  go  straight  to  the  world — to  Society  or  to  the 
masses,  to  the  natural  man,  cultured  or  coarse.  It 
is  a  large  question  that  opens  here.  I  cannot  do 
much  more  here  than  place  myself  on  the  side  of 
the  sound  principle  that  it  is  the  Church  that  is  the 
great  missionary  to  Humanity,  and  not  apostles, 
prophets,  and  agents  here  and  there.  If  a  preacher  / 
is  to  act  on  the  world  he  must,  as  a  rule,  do  it  through  / 
his  Church.  And  his  Church,  if  it  be  not  built  up 
in  its  faith,  will  in  due  course  cease  to  exist.  Many 
Christians  are  like  Peter.  They  need  several  con- 
versions (Luke  xxii.  32).  And  a  neglected  Church 
will  lose  that  collective  wisdom  which  alone  forms 
a  sound  judgment  on  the  difficult  moral  issues  of 
Society      Practical  wisdom  speaks  only  amid  the 


78    The  Preacher  and  his  Church 

full-grown  ;  and  our  souls  mature  only  in  a  living 
Christian  community.  Of  course,  if  the  preacher 
so  preaches  that  his  Church  cultivates  the  snugness 
of  pious  comfort  instead  of  the  humble  confidence 
of  evangehcal  faith,  then  also  the  Church  is  in 
decay,  and  it  will  in  due  time  become  but  a  reli- 
gious circle.  But  for  all  that  the  minister's  first  duty 
is  to  his  Church.  He  must  make  it  a  Church  that 
acts  on  the  world — through  him  indeed,  but  also  other- 
wise. He  is  to  act  at  its  head,  and  not  in  its  stead. 
In  this  matter  the  preacher  must  refuse  to  have  his 
duty  dictated  by  those  without,  who  have  little  or  no 
Church  sympathy  or  responsibility.  I  have  observed 
that  the  demand  on  the  preacher  to  ignore  his  people 
and  go  straight  to  the  world,  is  largely  made  by  the 
world,  by  influences,  at  least,  which  voice  the 
verdict  of  the  world  rather  than  the  insight  of  the 
Church,  by  religious  parliamentarians,  eager  social- 
ists, or  by  people  who  are  willing  to  utilize  the 
Church  but  quite  evade  its  responsibilities.  Some 
are,  like  many  sections  of  the  press  or  of  literature, 
voices  that  stand  aloof  from  the  Christian  burden 
and  speak  often  in  severe  criticism.  Or  they  are 
that  end  of  the  Church  which  is  more  moulded  by 
these  influences  than  by  Bible  or  Faith.  They 
speak  as  if  Christ's  first  obedience  had  been  to 
human  needs  and  not  to  God's  will.  And  they  are 
not  much  entitled  to  an  opinion  as  to  what  the 
proper  method  of  the  Gospel  is,  or  the  consequent 
duty  of  the  Church.  The  genius  of  the  Gospel  is 
after  all  best  understood  by  the  personal  believers 


or  Preaching  as  Worship       79 

in  the  Gospel.  And  that  genius  certainly  is  to 
go  to  the  world  ;  but  it  is  to  go  there  through  the 
Church,  and  the  Church's  Word.  It  goes  through 
the  common  action  of  believing  men,  who  are  mature 
enough  in  their  educated  faith  to  have  measured  both 
the  world  and  the  Gospel,  and  to  be  sure,  beyond 
cavil,  that  their  Gospel  is  the  tragic,  desperate  world's 
one  hope.  They  are  men  who  have  been  evangelized 
to  good  ripe  purpose.  The  Gospel  of  a  moral 
salvation  will  never  seize  the  world  through  men 
who  are  but  thinly  sure,  or  personally  neutral, 
and  have  only  an  admiration  for  Christian  ethic. 
The  act  of  Grace  can  never  be  conveyed  by  men 
on  whom  it  does  not  act.  As  little  will  it  capture 
the  world  through  men  who  are  converted  and  no 
more,  who  are  not  built  up  by  the  spiritual  educa- 
tion and  insight  of  a  living  Church. 

§ 

The  one  great  preacher  in  history,  I  would  con- 
tend, is  the  Church.  And  the  first  business  of  the 
individual  preacher  is  to  enable  the  Church  to 
preach.  Yet  so  that  he  is  not  its  echo  but  its  living 
voice,  not  the  echo  of  its  consciousness  but  the  organ 
of  its  Gospel.  Either  he  gives  the  Church  utter- 
ance, or  he  gives  it  insight  into  the  Gospel  it  utters. 
He  is  to  preach  to  the  Church  from  the  Gospel  so 
that  with  the  Church  he  may  preach  the  Gospel 
to  the  world.  He  is  so  to  preach  to  the  Church 
that  he  shall  also  preach  from  the  Church.  That 
is  to  say,  he  must  be  a  sacrament  to  the  Church, 


8o     The  Preacher  and  his  Church 

that  with  the  Church  he  may  become  a  missionary 
to  the  world. 

You  perceive  what  high  ground  I  take.  The 
preacher's  place  in  the  Church  is  sacramental.  It 
is  not  sacerdotal,  but  it  is  sacramental.  He 
mediates  the  word  to  the  Church  from  faith  to 
faith,  from  his  faith  to  theirs,  from  one  stage  of 
their  common  faith  to  another.  He  does  not  there 
speak  to  un-faith.  He  is  a  living  element  in 
Christ's  hands  (broken,  if  need  be)  for  the  distri- 
bution and  increment  of  Grace.  He  is  laid  on  the 
altar  of  the  Cross.  He  is  not  a  mere  reporter,  nor 
a  mere  lecturer,  on  sacred  things.  He  is  not  merely 
illuminative,  he  is  augmentive.  His  work  is  not 
to  enlighten  simply,  but  to  empower  and  enhance. 
Men  as  they  leave  him  should  be  not  only  clearer  but 
greater,  not  only  surer  but  stronger,  not  only  inter- 
ested, nor  only  instructed,  nor  only  affected,  but  fed 
and  increased.  He  has  not  merely  to  show  certain 
things  but  to  get  them  home,  and  so  home  that  they 
change  life,  either  in  direction  or  in  scale.  It  is 
only  an  age  like  the  present  age  of  mere  knowledge 
that  tends  to  make  preaching  the  statement  of  sound 
and  simple  truth,  interesting  but  powerless.  It 
is  only  an  age  which  starves  the  idea  of  revelation, 
by  its  neglect  of  the  sacramental  idea,  that 
reduces  preaching  to  evangelizing  alone.  It  is 
only  an  age  engrossed  with  impressions  and  careless 
about  realities  that  could  regard  the  preacher's 
prime  work  as  that  of  converting  the  world,  to  the 
neglect   of   transforming    the    Church.     It  is  only 


or  Preaching  as  Worship       8  i 

such  an  age  that  could  think  of  preaching  as  some- 
thing said  with  more  or  less  force,  instead  of  some- 
thing done  with  more  or  less  power.  We  spend 
our  polemic  upon  the  Mass,  and  fitly  enough  in 
proper  place.  But  the  Catholic  form  of  worship 
will  always  have  a  vast  advantage  over  ours  so 
long  as  people  come  away  from  its  central  act 
with  the  sense  of  something  done  in  the  spirit- 
world,  while  they  leave  ours  with  the  sense  only 
of  something  said  to  this  present  world.  In  true ')  j„**^ 
preaching,  as  in  a  true  sacrament,  more  is  done  than 
said.  And  much  is  well  done  which  is  poorly  said. 
Let  the  preacher  but  have  real  doings  with  God 
and  even  with  a  stammering  tongue  and  a  loose 
syntax  he  will  do  much  for  life  which  has  never 
yet  been  done  by  a  finished  style.  The  preacher 
may  go  "lame  but  lovely  ",  to  use  Charles  Lamb's 
fine  phrase.  His  word  may  lack  finish  if  it  have 
hands  and  feet.  He  is  a  man  of  action.  He  is 
among  the  men  who  do  things.  That  is  why 
I  call  him  a  sacramental  man,  not  merely  an 
expository,  declaratory  man.  In  a  sacrament  is 
there  not  something  done,  not  merely  shown,  no1 
merely  recalled  ?  It  is  no  mere  memorial.  How 
can  you  have  a  mere  memorial  of  one  who  is 
always  living,  always  present,  always  more  potent 
than  our  act  of  recall  is,  always  the  mover  of  it  ? 
What  he  once  put  there  might  be  a  memorial,  but 
what  he  is  always  putting  there  is  much  more  than 
that.  It  is  at  least  his  organ.  It  is,  indeed,  his  act.  It 
is  sometliing  practical  and  not  spectacular.     A  reve- 


82   The  Preacher  and  his  Church 

lation  may  be  but  something  exhibited,  but  in  a  sacra- 
ment there  is  something  effected.  And  the  one  revela- 
tion in  the  strict  sense  is  the  sacrament  of  the  cross, 
the  cross  as  an  effective  act  of  redemption.  A 
revelation  of  redemption  is  a  revelation  of  something 
done  ;  and  it  is  only  a  deed  that  can  reveal  a  deed.  If 
the  preacher  reveal  redemption  he  does  it  by  a  deed, 
by  a  deed  in  which  the  Redeemer  is  the  chief  actor, 
by  some  self-reproduction  by  Christ,  some  function 
of  the  work  of  the  Cross.  He  has  to  reproduce  the 
word  of  the  beginning,  the  word  of  the  Cross  which 
is  really  the  Cross's  own  energy,  the  Cross  in  action. 
No  true  preaching  of  the  Cross  can  be  other  than 
part  of  the  action  of  the  Cross.  If  a  man  preach 
let  him  preach  as  the  Oracle  of  God,  let  him  preach 
as  Christ  did,  whose  true  pulpit  was  His  Cross, 
whose  Cross  made  disciples  apostles,  in  whose  Cross 
God  first  preached  to  the  world,  whose  preaching 
from  the  Cross  has  done  for  the  world  what  all  His 
discourses — even  His  discourses — failed  to  do. 

The  preacher,  in  reproducing  this  Gospel  word  of 
God,  prolongs  Christ's  sacramental  work.  The 
real  presence  of  Christ  crucified  is  what  makes 
preaching.  It  is  what  makes  of  a  speech  a  sermon, 
and  of  a  sermon  Gospel.  This  is  the  work  of  God, 
this  continues  His  work  in  Christ,  that  ye  should 
believe  in  Him  whom  He  hath  sent.  We  do  not 
repeat  or  imitate  that  Cross,  on  the  one  hand  ;  and  we 
do  not  merely  state  it,  on  the  other.  It  re-enacts 
itself  in  us.  God's  living  word  reproduces  itself  as  a 
living  act.     It  is  not  inert  truth,  but  quick  power. 


or  Preaching  as  Worship       83 

All  teaching  about  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus  culmi- 
nates in  the  preaching  of  the  truth  which  is  Jesus, 
the  self-reproduction  of  the  word  of  reconciliation  in 
the  Cross.  Every  true  sermon,  therefore,  is  a  sacra- 
mental time  and  act.  It  is  God's  Gospel  act  reassert- 
ing itself  in  detail.  The  preacher's  word,  when  he 
preaches  the  gospel  and  not  only  delivers  a  sermon, 
is  an  effective  deed,  charged  with  blessing  or  with 
judgment.  We  eat  and  drink  judgment  to  ourselves 
as  we  hear.  It  is  not  an  utterance,  and  not  a  feat, 
and  not  a  treat.  It  is  a  sacramental  act,  done 
together  with  the  community  in  the  name  and 
power  of  Christ's  redeeming  act  and  our  common 
faith.  It  has  the  real  presence  of  the  active  Word 
whose  creation  it  is.  If  Christ  set  up  the  sacra- 
ment, His  Gospel  set  up  the  sermon.  And  if  He 
is  real  in  our  sacramental  act  still,  no  less  is  His 
deed  real  in  our  preached  word  which  prolongs 
that  deed.  And  it  is  known  to  be  real  by  the 
insight  of  faith,  however  many  counterfeits  there 
are,  with  no  insight  but  only  zeal,  and  sometimes 
with  nothing  but  stir. 

Our  Catholic  opponents  charge  us  with  having 
cut  ourselves  off  from  the  true  Church  by  having 
lost  the  sacramental  note.  And  I  will  confess  to  some 
fear  that  it  may  be  true,  though  in  another  sense 
than  theirs.  For  them  the  centre  of  gravity  in  the 
sacrament  is  in  the  elements — ^in  the  change  effected 
on  them,  and,  through  them,  on  us.  But  for  us  the 
centre  of  gravity  in  any  sacrament  lies  not  in  the 
material  element  but  in  the  communal  act .  That  is  the 


84     The  Preacher  and  his  Church 

site  of  Christ's  real  presence.  It  is  not  metaphysical 
but  moral  and  personal.  It  is  not  corporeal  but 
collective.  We  do  not  partake  of  Christ's  body  in 
the  form  of  any  substance,  however  refined  and 
ethereal.  For  us  the  body  of  Christ  means  the 
person  of  Christ/  and  the  whole  person  of  Christ 
is  gathered  into  His  saving,  atoning  act.  And  what 
we  perform  is  an  act  of  communal  reunion  with 
His  person  in  its  crucial  and  complete  act.  His 
great  act  of  Redemption  renews  itself  in  His  Church. 
We  re-enter  by  act  the  communion  not  of  Christ's 
substance  but,  as  the  apostle  says,  of  His  death — that 
is,  of  His  saving  act.  It  is  in  the  Church's  act  that 
the  real  presence  behind  it  takes  effect,  the  real 
presence  of  Him  who  was  above  all  things  the  will 
and  deed  of  God,  God's  eternal  will  and  new  testa- 
ment. It  is  the  Great  Act  of  Christ  finding  itself 
anew  in  the  act  of  the  Church. 

Now  this  is  really  what  occurs  in  another  aspect 
in  the  Sacrament  of  the  Word,  in  the  Church's 
preaching  of  the  Gospel.  To  be  effective  our 
preaching  must  be  sacramental.  It  must  be  an 
act  prolonging  the  Great  Act,  mediating  it,  and 
conveying  it.  Its  energy  and  authority  is  that  of 
the  Great  Act.  The  Gospel  spoken  by  man  is  the 
energizing  of  the  Gospel  achieved  by  God.  Its 
authority  is  not  that  of  the  preacher's  personality,  nor 
even  of  his  faith,  nay,  not  even  of  his  message  alone, 
but  that  of  the  divine  action  behind  him,  whereof 

*  "All  flesh "  =  all  persons.  "One  flesh  "  =  one  dual 
personality. 


or  Preaching  as  Worship       85 

he  himself  is  but  as  it  were  the  sacramental  element, 
and  not  the  sacramental  Grace.  If  our  preaching 
is  not  more  sacramental  than  the  Catholic  altar — 
I  do  not  say  more  eloquent  or  more  able,  but  more 
sacramental — then  it  is  the  altar  that  must  pre- 
vail over  all  our  No-Popery.  For  religion  is  sacra- 
mental. Where  it  is  not  it  becomes  bald.  And 
the  only  question  is,  where  the  sacrament  lies.  We 
place  it  in  the  Word  of  Gospel.  Accedit  verbum  etfit 
sacranientum.  Nothing  but  the  Word  made  Sacra- 
ment can  make  a  Sacrament  out  of  elements,  and 
keep  it  in  its  proper  place.  But  what  a  task  for 
our  preachers  to  fulfil ! 

It  is  this  sacramental  note  that  I  fear  our  preach- 
ing often  loses.  It  is  this  objective  power,  over- 
ruling both  the  temperament  of  the  preacher  and 
the  temper  of  his  time.  We  speak  freely  and 
finely  about  the  Gospel,  but  does  the  Gospel  come  to 
its  own  in  it  all  ?  Does  it  preach  itself  through  us 
with  power  ?  Are  our  sermons  deeds,  'action-sermons'? 
They  cost  much  labour,  and  what  do  we  take  by  it  ? 
They  are  not  without  some  effect,  but  are  they  real 
causes  in  the  religious  life  ?  If  they  are  not,  is  it 
because  they  lack  will-power,  because  they  are 
exercises  more  than  acts,  productions  more  than 
powers,  which  aim  at  impression  more  than  at 
change  ?  Is  it  because  they  lack  behind  them  the 
volume  of  a  Church's  conviction,  a  Church's  faith, 
the  impact  of  a  whole  Church's  wiU  ?  Is  it  because 
we  are  more  eager  to  have  in  our  pulpits  the  manly 
man  than  the  new  man  ? 


86     The  Preacher  and  his  Church 

True  preaching  presupposes  a  Church,  and  not 
merely  a  pubhc.  And  wherever  the  Church 
idea  fades  into  that  of  a  mere  rehgious  club  or 
association  you  have  a  decay  in  preaching.  Wher- 
ever the  people  are  but  a  religious  lecture  society 
the  pulpit  sinks.  When  it  is  idolized  it  always  sinks. 
It  does  not  lose  in  interest,  or  in  the  sympathetic 
note,  but  it  loses  in  power,  which  is  the  first  thing 
in  a  Gospel.  If  the  preacher  but  hold  the  mirror 
up  to  our  finer  nature  the  people  soon  forget  what 
manner  of  men  they  are. 

But  you  point  out  to  me  that  the  preaching  of 
the  Apostles  was  addressed  to  the  public,  that  it 
was  very  largely  of  the  gathering,  of  the  missionary, 
kind.  Yes,  but  even  that  began  and  worked  from 
the  faith  it  found.  It  began  with  the  susceptible 
among  the  Jews.  At  first  it  was  not  so  much  con- 
verting for  Gentiles  as  stirring  for  Jews.  It  was  always 
with  the  local  synagogue  that  Paul  began  when  he 
could,  with  the  votaries  of  the  Old  Testament  Word  ; 
and  while  he  could  he  worked  through  them  or  their 
proselytes.  Jesus  Himself  began  so.  His  relations 
beyond  Israel  grew  out  of  His  relations  with  Israel. 
It  was  His  earnest  dealings  with  Israel  that  provoked 
the  Cross,  which  alone  universalized  the  Gospel.  So 
the  preacher  has  his  starting  point  in  the  stated  and 
solemn  assemblies  of  the  Church,  though  he  does 
not  end  there.  Through  these,  he  works  also 
on  his  public  who  are  present,  though  not  of  the 
Church.     Then  in  the  end  he  goes  to  the  world 


or  Preaching  as  Worship       87 

without.  But  his  first  duty,  if  he  is  a  settled  pastor, 
and  not  a  preaching  friar,  is  to  his  Church.  Nothing 
could  be  more  misplaced,  when  a  young  preacher 
enters  on  a  Church,  than  a  neglect  or  contempt 
of  its  corporate  life  and  creed,  or  a  sudden  inversion 
of  these  in  order  that  he  may  get  at  the  world.  He 
has  no  right  to  stop  the  building  that  he  may  start 
elsewhere.  He  has  no  right  to  use  his  Church 
merely  to  provide  himself  with  an  outside  pulpit.  It 
is  together  that  they  must  go  to  the  world,  he  and 
his  Church.  What  Christ  founded  was  not  an 
order  of  preachers,  nor  the  institution  of  preaching, 
but  a  community,  a  Church,  whose  first  charge 
His  preaching  should  be.  It  is  Church  and  preacher 
together  that  reach  the  world. 

The  preaching  even  to  the  Church,  being  in  the 
presence  of  the  public,  has  of  course  due  regard 
to  their  presence.  The  sermon  is  not  a  mere 
homily  to  an  inner  circle.  It  is  gospelling. 
The  Church  is  addressed  in  the  presence  of 
people  who  are  not  of  the  Church.  The  preacher 
indeed  renews  for  believers  the  reality  of  the 
Gospel ;  but  he  does  it  in  a  large  way  that  con- 
cerns also  those  who  have  not  confessed  their 
faith  explicitly.  He  dwells  for  the  most  part  on 
the  large  and  broad  features  of  the  Gospel  rather 
than  on  individual  and  casuistic  situations.  He 
declares  the  whole  counsel  of  God  ;  that  is,  the  counse 
of  God  as  a  whole.  If  he  handle  individual  cases, 
it  is  as  illustrations  of  wider  truth.  He  leaves  cases 
of  conscience   to   private   intercourse,     He  is  not 


8  8     The  Preacher  and  his  Church 

in  the  pulpit  a  director  of  conscience  so  much  as  a 
shepherd  or  a  seeker  of  souls .  And  he  may  give  expres- 
sion to  his  own  private  experiences  only  in  so  far  as 
is  seemly  and  useful  for  the  more  public  aspects  of 
his  Gospel.  If  he  is  ever  beside  himself,  it  must  be 
privately  to  God  ;  for  the  people's  sake  he  is  sober 
and  sane.  Preaching  is  not  simply  pastoral  visita- 
tion on  a  large  scale.  Teaching  from  house  to  house 
meant  for  the  apostles  not  visitation,  but  minister- 
ing to  the  Church  gathered  in  private  houses,  as 
it  had  then  to  be. 

The  first  vis-d-vis  of  the  preacher,  then,  is  not 
the  world,  but  the  Gospel  community.  The  word 
is  living  only  in  a  living  community.  Its  spirit 
can  act  outwards  only  as  it  grows  inwardly  and 
animates  a  body  duly  fed  and  cared  for.  The 
preacher  has  to  do  this  tending.  He  has  to  declare 
the  Church's  word,  and  to  utter  the  Church's  faith, 
to  itself,  in  order  that  he  and  the  Church  together 
may  declare  them  to  the  world.  The  Church  may 
-use,  but  cannot  rely  upon,  evangehsts  who  are 
evangehsts  and  nothing  else.  When  the  preacher 
speaks  to  believers  it  is  to  build  them  up  as  a  Chris- 
tian community ;  when  he  speaks  to  the  world 
it  is  to  build  them  into  a  Christian  community. 
And  the  Church  is  built  up  by  taking  sanctuary,  by 
stopping  to  realize  its  own  faith,  by  the  repetition 
of  its  own  old  Gospel,  by  turning  aside  to  see 
its  great  sight,  by  standing  still  to  see  the  salvation 
of  the  Lord. 

§ 
Its  own  old  Gospel  !     It  is  not   needful  that  the 


or  Preaching  as  Worship       89 

preacher  should  be  original  as  a  genius  is,  but  only 
as  a  true  believer  is.  What  he  brings  to  the  Church 
is  not  something  unheard  of,  and  imported  from  out- 
side,'to  revolutionize  it.  He  has  to  offer  the  Church, 
in  outer  form,  the  word  which  is  always  within  it, 
in  order  that  the  Church,  by  that  presentation, 
may  become  anew  what  by  God's  grace  it  already 
is.  He  must  be  original  in  the  sense  that  his  truth 
is  his  own,  but  not  in  the  sense  that  it  has  been 
no  one  else's.  You  must  distinguish  between  novelty 
and  freshness.  The  preacher  is  not  to  be  original  in 
the  sense  of  being  absolutely  new,  but  in  the  sense 
of  being  fresh,  of  appropriating  for  his  own  person- 
ality, or  his  own  age,  what  is  the  standing  posses- 
sion of  the  Church,  and  its  perennial  trust  from 
Christ.  He  makes  discovery  in  the  Gospel,  not  of 
the  Gospel.  Some  preachers  spoil  their  work  by 
an  incessant  strain  after  novelty,  and  a  morbid 
dread  of  the  commonplace.  But  it  was  one  no  less 
original  than  Goethe,  who  said,  the  great  artist 
is  not  afraid  of  the  commonplace.  To  be  unable 
to  freshen  the  commonplace  is  to  be  either  dull 
or  bizarre.  Yet  to  be  nothing  but  new  is  Hke  a 
raw  and  treeless  house  shouting  its  plaster  novelty 
on  a  beautiful  old  brown  moor.  The  artist  may 
treat  revelation  as  discovery.  He  may  create 
what  he  finds  but  as  chaos.  He  finds  but  power, 
and  he  issues  it  in  grace.  But  it  is  otherwise  with 
the  preacher.  It  is  the  converse.  He  finds  revela- 
tion in  all  discovery.  He  finds  to  his  hand  the 
grace    which    he    has    to    issue    with    power.     His 


90     The  Preacher  and  his  Church 

word  is  to  send  home  a  Word  which  was  articulate 
from  the  beginning,  "What  we  have  seen  and  heard 
of  the  Word  of  Hfe  declare  we  to  you."  The 
artist's  grace  is  not  the  preacher's.  Nor  is  it  true 
without  modification  that  "  all  grace  is  the  grace 
of  God."  The  preacher  has  often  been  compared 
with  the  actor,  and  often  he  has  succumbed  to 
the  actor's  temperament,  or  to  his  arts.  But  there 
is  a  point  of  real  analogy.  The  actor  creates  a 
part,  as  the  phrase  is  ;  but  it  is  only  by  appropri- 
ating a  personahty  which  the  dramatist  really 
created  and  put  into  his  hands.  And  that  is  what 
the  preacher  has  to  do.  He  has  to  work  less  with 
his  own  personahty  than  with  the  personality 
provided  him  in  Christ,  through  Christ's  work  in 
him.  He  has  to  interpret  Christ.  Moreover,  the 
actor's  is  a  voice  which  is  forgotten,  while  the 
poet's  is  a  voice  that  remains.  So  also  the  preacher's 
originahty  is  hmited.  By  the  very  Spirit  that 
moves  him  he  speaks  not  of  himself.  He  must  not 
expect  the  actor's  vogue.  Self-assertion  or  jealousy 
are  more  offensive  in  him  than  in  the  artist.  It  is 
enough  if  he  be  a  hving  voice  ;  he  is  not  a  creative 
word.  He  is  not  the  light  ;  he  but  bears  witness  to  it. 
'  Je  ne  suis  pas  la  rose  mats  j'ai  vecu  pres  d'elle.'^ 
There  is  even  less  room  for  originahty  of  idea 
in  the  pulpit  than  elsewhere.  What  is  needed  is 
rather  spontaneity  of  power.  This  is  quite  in 
keeping  with  the  conservatism  that  must  always 
play  a  part  so  much  greater  in  the  Church  than 
in  the  State.    The  preacher  not  only  appeals  to  the 


or  Preaching  as  Worship       91 

permanent  in  human  nature  ;  he  is  also  the  hiero- 
phant  of  a  foregone  revelation  ;  he  is  not  the  organ 
of  a  new  one.  His  foundation  is  laid  for  him  once 
for  all  in  Christ.  His  power  lies  not  in  initiation, 
but  in  appropriation.  And  his  work  is  largely  to 
assist  the  Church  to  a  fresh  appropriation  of  its 
own  Gospel.  It  is  not  to  dazzle  us  with  brand-new 
aspects  even  of  the  Gospel.  God  forbid  that  I 
should  say  a  word  to  seem  to  justify  the  dulness 
that  infects  the  pulpit.  Alas  !  if  our  sin  crucify 
Christ  afresh,  our  stupidity  buries  Him  again.  But 
the  cure  for  pulpit  dulness  is  not  briUiancy,  as  in 
literature.  It  is  reality.  It  is  directness  and 
spontaneity  of  the  common  life.  The  preacher 
is  not  there  to  astonish  people  with  the  unheard 
of  ;  he  is  there  to  revive  in  them  what  they  have 
long  heard.  He  discovers  a  mine  on  the  estate. 
The  Church,  by  the  preacher's  aid,  has  to  realize 
its  own  faith,  and  take  home  anew  its  own  Gospel. 
That  which  was  from  the  beginning  declare  we 
unto  you — that  fresh  old  human  nature  and  that 
fresh  old  grace  of  God. 

What  a  strength  we  aU  receive  from  self-expres- 
sion !  How  we  pine  if  it  is  denied  !  How  we  die 
if  it  is  suppressed  !  It  is  life  to  a  genius  to  get 
out  what  is  in  him  ;  it  is  death  to  be  stifled  or 
neglected.  If  we  can  but  express  what  is  in  us  to 
ourselves  it  is  often  sufficient.  If  we  can  put 
pen  to  paper,  paint  to  canvas,  or  the  hand  to 
clay,  it  may  save  us,  even  if  we  do  not  get  a  market 
or  a  vogue.    Othen\dse  it  is  soHtary  confinement, 


92     The  Preacher  and  his  Church 

or  death.  The  flame  dies  for  want  of  air.  In  like 
manner  also  our  private  prayer  receives  for  ourselves 
a  new  value  when  in  our  solitude  we  utter  it  aloud. 
The  aspiration  gains  mightily  from  the  spoken 
word.  The  very  effort  to  shape  it  in  words  adds 
to  its  depth,  precision,  confidence,  and  effect.  It  is 
well  to  sigh  our  prayers,  but  it  is  better  to  utter  them. 
With  the  heart  man  believeth  unto  righteousness, 
but  with  the  mouth  we  confess  unto  salvation. 
Righteousness  is  well,  but  it  must  be  established 
and  confirmed  as  salvation.  Just  so  the  preacher's 
address  to  the  Church  is  really  the  Church  preaching 
to  the  Church.  It  is  the  Church  expressing  itself 
to  itself.  The  Church  is  feeling  its  own  strength, 
and  by  the  feeling  it  is  growing  in  godly  self- 
confidence,  and  in  power  to  say  to  the  world  what 
the  whole  world  resists. 

The  Christian  preacher  is  no  prophet  sent  to  the 
public  till  he  is  a  voice  of  the  Church  to  the  Church. 
He  is  but  a  part  of  the  Church,  yet  he  speaks  to 
the  whole.  We  tend  our  body  with  the  hand, 
which  is  but  an  organ  of  the  body.  So  the  preacher 
tends  the  Church  as  a  part  of  it,  moved  in  his  act, 
not  by  the  part's  life,  but  by  its  share  in  the  life 
of  the  whole.  He  is  over  against  the  Church  only 
as  the  organ  is  over  against  the  organism.  It  is 
the  body  that  turns  the  hand  upon  itself.  The 
Church  in  the  preacher  becomes  explicitly  conscious 
of  itself.  Its  latent  faith  becomes  patent.  It 
knows  how  much  greater  it  is  than  it  thought. 
It  is  amazed  with  itself.     It  realizes  what  a  mighty 


or  Preaching  as  Worship       93 

matter  its  faith  is.  The  flush  rises  to  the  face  of 
its  love.  The  gleam  shines  in  its  eye  of  its  hope. 
And  it  must  reach  this  self-expression.  It  is  not 
merely  the  better  for  it.  The  expression  is  part  of 
the  reality.  The  form  is  part  of  the  life.  It  is 
part  of  the  joint  action  of  the  Word  which  is  the 
Church's  life,  and  of  the  faith  that  meets  that 
Word.  The  sermon  is  an  essential  part  of  the 
worship. 

§ 

The  preacher,  therefore,  starts  with  a  Church 
of  brethren  that  agree  with  him  and  that  believe 
with  him  ;  and  in  its  power  he  goes  to  a  world 
that  does  neither.  What  he  has  to  do  is  not  to 
exhibit  himself  to  the  Church,  nor  to  force  himself 
on  it.  He  offers  himself  to  it  in  the  like  faith,  as 
a  part  of  their  common  offering  by  the  Eternal 
Spirit  to  God.  And  the  stronger  the  Church  is, 
so  much  the  more  it  needs  preaching,  and  the  more 
it  desires  preaching,  preaching  not  only  through 
it  but  to  it ;  just  as  genius  demands  self-expression 
in  passionate  proportion  to  its  power.  Only 
note  that  while  the  genius  demands  expression 
for  itself  the  Church  demands  it  for  its  Gospel. 
It  demands  expression  for  its  positive,  objective 
faith  and  not  its  consciousness  ;  its  message  and 
not  merely  its  experience.  The  Eternal  Word 
that  always  makes  the  Church,  has  to  speak  to  a 
Church  whose  experience  is  largely  below  the  level 
of  the  faith  of  that  Word.     What  makes  the  Church 


94     The  Preacher  and  his  Church 

is  not  Christ  as  its  founder  but  Christ  as  its  tenant 
as  its  hfe,  as  its  power,  the  Christ  Hving  in  the 
faith  of  its  members  in  general,  and  of  its 
ministers  in  particular.  But  it  is  a  Christ  that 
only  partially  comes  to  His  own  in  the  Church's 
actual  experience.  The  faith  within  the  Church 
has  to  speak  to  its  half-faith,  its  bewildered  faith, 
its  struggling,  or  even  its  decaying  faith. 

What  is  done  in  preaching  to  the  Church,  there- 
fore, is  not  to  set  out  its  own  consciousness.  At 
any  rate,  it  is  not  the  consciousness  of  the  Church 
at  any  one  stage — even  the  present.  It  is  the 
Spirit  speaking  to  the  Churches.  It  is  the  past 
Church  speaking  to  the  present,  the  whole  Church 
to  the  single  Church,  the  ripe  Church  to  the  unripe, 
the  faithful  Church  to  the  faltering  Church,  the 
ideal  Church  to  the  actual,  the  unseen  to  the  seen. 
It  is  the  great,  common,  universal  faith  addressing 
the  faith  of  the  local  community.  And,  in  so  far 
as  the  preacher  is  the  voice  of  the  Church,  he  is 
the  voice,  not  of  his  own  Church,  but  of  the  Great 
Church  that  envelopes  his  own.  The  preacher 
reflects  the  faith  of  the  great  true  Church,  but 
neither  the  faith  nor  the  views  of  those  around  him. 
He  is  not  giving  expression  to  the  average  opinion 
of  his  congregation,  or  his  denomination.  The 
preacher  is  the  mandatory  of  the  great  Church,  which 
any  congregation  or  sect  but  represents  here  and 
now.  And  what  he  has  to  do  is  to  nourish  that 
single  and  accidental  community  with  the  essence 
of   the   Church   universal ;    that    the    members   of 


or  Preaching  as  Worship       95 

the  Church  may  rise  to  the  level  of  the  Church, 
to  its  true  nature,  its  ideal  holiness  as  the  called 
of  God.  When  he  addresses  the  Church  it  is  the 
ideal  Church  addressing  the  actual,  the  upper 
Church  the  lower,  the  Church  of  the  ages  appealing 
to  the  Church  of  the  hour,  the  Church  universal 
to  the  Church  on  the  spot.  The  inner  Church 
addresses  the  outer,  that  the  outer  may  reahze 
itself  anew,  and  apprehend  that  for  which  Christ 
apprehended  it.  Nothing  in  the  service  goes  to 
the  root  of  the  Gospel  (and,  therefore,  of  the  Church) 
like  preaching.  And  this  makes  preaching  the 
chief  part  of  our  evangelical  ritual,  the  part  which 
gives  the  law  to  all  worship,  since  the  message  is 
what  stirs  worship  and  makes  it  possible.  Our 
chief  praise  is  thanksgiving  for  the  Gospel.  And  our 
prayer  is  Christian  only  in  the  name  of  the  Gospel. 
Preaching  is  "  the  organized  Hallelujah  of  an 
ordered  community." 

But  when  the  preacher  turns  from  the  Church 
of  which  he  is  pastor  to  the  world  to  which  he  is 
missionary  he  must  speak  in  the  name  of  the  whole 
Church  as  a  unity.  Hence  the  slowness  of  missions 
while  the  parts  of  the  Church  fight  and  devour 
each  other.  Hence,  too,  the  unifying  reaction  of 
missions  on  the  Church.  Hence,  also,  the  mis- 
sionary must  preach  in  chief  those  great  things 
which  are  the  objective  powers  of  the  Church,  and 
not  a  subjective  or  merely  experimental  piety. 
Let  him  preach  the  Gospel,  and  leave  it  to  make 
its  own  experience  in  the  new  races,  by  its  own 


96     The  Preacher  and  his  Church 

creative  power.  Their  form  of  experience  may 
be  very  different  from  what  has  grown  up  in  the 
train  of  our  civilization,  with  the  mentahty  of  the 
West.  No  preacher  (I  have  said)  is  only  the 
representative  of  the  Church's  consciousness ;  and 
the  missionary  preacher  is  so  least  of  all.  He  is 
the  organ  of  the  Gospel  that  created  the  Church's 
consciousness  at  the  first,  and  has  developed  it 
all  along. 

Therefore,  it  is  not  the  Church  that  he  or 
any  evangelist  preaches.  Wherever  the  Church 
is  preached,  the  Gospel  comes  short.  We  have 
then  Catholicism,  and  we  cease  in  due  course  to 
have  the  Gospel  at  all.  The  preacher  has  not 
even  his  commission  from  the  Church,  but  only  a 
licence  at  most,  only  his  opportunity.  The  Church 
supplies  not  his  authority  but  his  pulpit.  He  has 
his  commission  from  God,  from  the  Church  only  his 
permission.  He  is  an  officer,  not  of  the  Church, 
but  of  the  Word  that  the  Church  has  in  steward- 
ship. And  all  the  Church  has  to  do  is  to  dis- 
cover if  he  has  the  commission,  by  the  wisest, 
and  even  severest,  tests,  by  a  prolonged  training, 
perhaps,  which  is  also  a  probation.  But  it  is 
a  commission  the  Church  cannot  bestow.  It  can 
only  discern.  It  cannot  convey  the  apostolic 
spirit,  it  can  but  wait  upon  it.  The  Church  has 
no  rights  in  the  matter  of  ordination,  and  can  confer 
none.  It  has  but  a  duty  to  recognize  the  spirit's 
movement  and  the  purity  of  the  Word,  and  to 
faciUtate  the  Gospel  in  the  most  effectual  way. 


or  Preaching  as  Worship       97 


Preaching,  then,  is  part  of  the  cultus.  That 
is  the  Protestant  idea.  To  treat  it  as  a  gratuitous 
adjunct  to  the  service  is  CathoUc.  To  regard  it 
as  the  mere  exposition  of  a  minister's  views  is 
neither  Protestant  nor  CathoHc.  It  is  not  even 
Christian.  It  is  a  rationahstic  way  of  regarding 
the  matter,  and  it  causes  the  sermon  to  differ  by 
no  whit  from  a  lecture  more  or  less  popular,  or  from  a 
manifesto,  more  or  less  interesting,  of  the  preacher's 
personality.  The  sermon  has  always  been  regarded 
as  an  integral  part  of  the  service  by  a  Protestantism 
which  knew  what  it  was  about.  It  is  the  Word  of 
the  Gospel  returning  in  confession  to  God  who 
gave  it.  It  is  addressed  to  men  indeed,  but  in 
truth  it  is  offered  to  God.  Addressed  to  men  but 
offered  to  God — that  is  the  true  genius  of  preaching. 
Christ  sees  in  it  joyfully  the  travail  and  the  trophy 
of  His  soul.  Like  all  the  rest  of  the  worship,  it 
is  the  fruit  of  the  Gospel.  May  I  call  it  again 
"  the    organized    Hallelujah "    of   intelligent    faith. 

In  so  viewing  preaching.  Protestantism  has 
reverted  to  the  New  Testament  idea,  and  to  the 
first  Church.  There  more  attention  (to  say  the 
least)  is  given  to  the  proclamation  of  the'  Word, 
than  to  the  worship.  And  quite  as  much  as  is 
given  to  the  Sacraments — which  were  sometimes 
outside  the  personal  concern  of  an  apostle  like 
Paul.  He  thanks  God  he  had  baptised  but  two  in 
one  Church.     Our  Lord,  we  are  told,  baptised  not. 

p.p.  7 


98     The  Preacher  and  his  Church 

On  the  other  hand,  the  apostles  could  not  but 
preach.  It  was  an  essential  part  of  their  grateful, 
worshipful  response  to  the  Word  of  Grace  which 
had  found  them.  It  was  a  creation  of  that  Word. 
"  It  pleased  God  to  reveal  His  Son  in  me  that  I 
might  preach  Him  among  the  Gentiles."  That 
is  to  say,  the  preacher's  commission  was  given  in 
the  very  nature  of  the  revelation  which  made 
him  a  Christian.  The  revelation  by  its  very  meaning 
left  him  no  choice.  The  self-same  act  of  the  cross 
which  made  him  worship  Christ,  made  him  preach 
Christ  as  part  of  the  worship.  And  by  a  consequence 
that  hearing  the  preaching  was  also  part  of  their 
worship  to  whom  he  spoke.  Real  preaching  then  was 
bound  up  with  the  worship  of  Christ,  with  a  faith 
that  could  not  but  worship.  The  testimony  to  men 
was  as  truly  an  acknowledgement  to  God  of  His 
gracious  Gospel  as  was  any  express  act  of  confession 
or  praise.  And  the  men  who  heard  had  a  part 
and  a  responsibility  as  great  as  the  preacher's. 
The  confession  of  sin,  which  all  call  a  part  of  worship, 
did  not  mean  so  much  as  the  confession  of  holiness 
in  a  Saviour — which  is  the  preaching  of  the  Church. 
Further,  if  preaching  is  a  main  part  of  the  Church's 
worship,  it  is  a  part  especially  of  the  minister's 
own  personal  worship.  It  is  for  him  an  act  of  worship, 
in  a  far  more  intimate  and  real  sense  than  anything 
he  may  do  in  the  serving  of  tables,  the  organizing 
of  work,  or  the  carrying  of  help.  Nothing  tends 
more  to  lower  the  quality  of  preaching  than  a 
loss  of  this  sense  on  the  preacher's  part.     Nothing 


or  Preaching  as  Worship       99 

will  destroy  public  respect  for  it  so  fast  as  the 
preacher's  own  loss  of  respect  for  it.  And  that 
respect  is  lost  when,  for  the  preacher  himself,  the 
preaching  is  more  speech  than  action,  when  he 
feels  its  practical  value  to  be  more  in  what  it  leads 
to,  than  in  what  it  is.  If  great  art  is  praise,  true 
preaching  is  so  no  less.  Much  preaching  that  is 
not  popular  is  still  true  worship. 

Preaching  is  thus  the  creation  of  the  Gospel, 
and  not  our  mere  tribute  to  the  Gospel ;  therefore,  it 
has  one  great  note  which  should  appeal  to  the  modem 
mind — the  note  of  inevitabihty.  It  was  the  inevit- 
able word,  so  prized  now  by  the  connoisseurs  of 
style — the  authentic  Word.  It  was  the  triumph 
of  the  Gospel  genius,  the  royalty  of  the  Gospel  way. 
It  came  forth  with  the  ease,  aptness  and  weight 
wielded  by  full  and  conscious  power.  However 
verbose  preachers  may  be,  preaching  is  not  the 
verbosity  of  a  Word  whose  truer  nature  would 
have  been  reticent  like  a  ritual  sacrament.  The 
preacher  may  be  illogical,  but  preaching  is  there 
by  a  spiritual  logic,  and  a  psychological  necessity, 
in  the  Gospel  itself.  It  was  the  Church's  great 
spontaneous  confession  of  its  faith  both  to  itself 
and  the  world.  There  was  something  almost  lyric 
about  it — as  the  great  creeds  were  at  first  hymns. 
They  expressed  not  merely  belief,  but  triumphant 
irrepressible  belief.  Nay,  it  was  more.  It  was  the 
belief  of  men  more  than  conquerors,  more  than 
triumphant.  They  were  the  harbingers  and  hiero- 
phants  of  the  world's  foregone  but  final  conquest. 


loo    The  Preacher  and  his  Church 

They  were  more  than  victorious,  they  were  redeemed 
They  were  victorious  only  because  redeemed. 
They  could  not  be  parted  from  Christ's  love  by 
any  tribulation,  anguish,  peril,  or  sword  (Rom.  viii. 
35-9) — not  because  they  had  overcome  these  things, 
t'ven  in  His  name,  but  because  He  had,  already  and 
in  advance,  put  them  under  His  feet  for  good  and 
all,  for  Himself  and  His  people.  They  were 
trophies  of  Christ's  conquest  more  than  victors  in 
their  own.  And  it  was  more  joy  to  be  a  trophy 
and  captive  in  the  triumphal  procession  of  Christ 
than  to  sit  with  Caesar  in  his  car.  What  made  them 
preach  was  a  victory  gained,  not  by  them,  but  in 
them  and  over  them.  And  they  sang  their  joy 
in  preachings  that  captured  the  world  for  which 
they  were  themselves  also  captured  in  Christ. 

Preaching  then  is  the  Church  confessing  its  faith. 
And  it  is  as  surely  a  part  of  the  service  as  the  reciting 
of  a  creed  could  be.  It  is  another  aspect  of  the  same 
response  to  the  Word  given.  It  is  less  organized, 
but  no  less  collective  than  the  great  creeds.  And  in 
the  Churches  where  there  are  no  formal  creeds  it 
takes  their  place.  The  place  of  the  sermon  in  the 
more  democratic  and  non-Catholic  Churches  is  due, 
in  part,  to  the  absence  in  their  ritual  of  a  recited 
creed.  It  is  all  that  some  of  them,  like  the  Con- 
gregationalists,  have  for  a  creed. 

§ 

This  fact,  of  course,  lays  a  corresponding  responsi- 
bility on  the  preacher  ;   though  it  is  a  responsibility 


or  Preaching  as  Worship     loi 

that  is  sometimes  ignored  or  resented  by  preachers, 
who  claim  for  themselves  a  freedom  that  properly 
belongs  only  to  the  Church.  For  the  minister  of  a 
Church  in  its  pulpit  is  not  a  free  lance  (I  say  in  its 
pulpit,  not  in  his).  He  is  not  a  mere  preaching 
friar,  a  vagrant  Evangelist,  gathering  his  audience 
in  streets  and  lanes,  hedges  and  highways,  as  he  can 
find  them.  He  enters  on  a  position  of  trust  which 
he  did  not  create.  He  is  licensed  to  it  when  he  is 
called  by  its  custodian,  the  Church.  Any  call  to  a 
minister  is,  in  substance,  a  licence  conferred  on  him, 
however  much  in  form  it  may  be  a  petition  addressed 
to  him.  He  stands  on  a  platform,  an  institution, 
which  is  provided  for  him,  and  he  owes  practical 
regard  to  the  Church  that  provides  it.  He  bespeaks 
men's  attention,  not  in  virtue  of  his  personal  quality 
merely,  but  in  virtue  of  a  charge  and  Gospel,  given 
both  to  minister  and  Church,  which  both  must  serve. 
He  is  not  free  to  vend  in  his  pulpit  the  extravagances 
of  an  eccentric  individualism,  nor  the  thin  heresies 
of  the  amateur.  He  is  not  entitled  to  ask  men  to  hear 
with  respectful  silence  the  freaks  of  mere  mother- 
wit,  or  the  guesses  of  an  untutored  intelligence. 
When  a  man  is  entrusted  with  the  pastoral  care  of  a 
Church  from  its  pulpit  he  accepts,  along  with  the 
normality  of  Scripture,  the  obligations,  limita- 
tions and  reserves  of  the  pastoral  commission.  He 
that  sweareth  by  the  altar  sweareth  also  by  that 
which  is  upon  the  altar :  and  he  abuses  his  position 
if  he  simply  unload  upon  his  charge  certain  startling 
views  by  way  of  relief  to  his  own  egoist  conscience. 


102    The  Preacher  and  his  Church 

To  the  older  members  of  the  flock  that  can  be 
upon  occasion  the  heartlessness  of  intellectualism, 
or  the  cruelty  of  youth.  A  man  speaking  his 
genuine  experience  in  the  experimental  region  of 
religion  is  always  worth  listening  to.  But  if  a 
man  takes  leave  to  assault  the  great  doctrines,  or 
to  raise  the  great  questions  as  if  they  had  occurred 
to  him  first,  if  he  knows  nothing  of  what  has  been 
done  in  them  by  experts,  or  where  thinkers  have 
left  the  question,  he  is  out  of  place.  No  man  is 
entitled  to  discuss  theology  in  public  who  has  not 
studied  theology.  It  is  like  any  other  weighty 
subject.  Still  more  is  this  requisite  if  he  set  to 
challenge  and  reform  theology.  He  ought  to  be  a 
trained  theologian.  He  need  not  have  been  at 
college,  if  he  show  sufficient  evidence  of  real  study. 
To  read  theology  is  not  enough.  Reading  may  be 
no  more  than  the  browsing  of  a  mental  epicure  at 
will.  The  subject  must  be  studied,  and  studied 
at  fountain  heads.  No  man  should  ask  for  a 
public  hearing  on  a  theological  question  unless 
he  has  mastered  his  New  Testament  at  first  hand, 
together  with  one  or  more  of  the  great  classics 
which  are  landmarks  and  points  of  new  departure  for 
theological  thought.  If  we  had  more  honest  work 
behind  our  theological  talk  we  should  not,  for  in- 
stance, have  popular  clap-trap  like  the  statement  that 
the  Athanasian  Creed  is  a  jumble  of  Greek  meta- 
physics, when  its  whole  substance  registers  the  vital 
effort  of  the  Church  to  overcome  metaphysic  in  the 
interest  of  a  historic  redemption ;  as  it  were  to  be 


or  Preaching  as  Worship     103 

wished  the  victims  of  metaphysic  would  do  who 
essay  to  reform  our  creed  to-day.  But  it  takes  a 
mastery  of  metaphysic  to  escape  from  metaphysic. 
And  it  takes  a  real  knowledge  of  theology  to  lead 
theology  on  its  broadening  way,  and  at  the  same 
time  preserve  the  depth  and  intimacy  of  its  Gospel. 

A  man  is  not  invited  into  a  pulpit  just  to  say  how 
things  strike  him  at  his  angle,  any  more  than  he  is 
expected  to  lay  bare  to  the  pubHc  the  private  recesses 
of  his  soul.  Nor  is  it  the  preacher's  first  duty  to  be 
up-to-date,  to  be  in  the  van  of  tentative  thought. 
He  can  do  his  work  well  without  the  very  newest 
machinery.  The  professor  should  know  the  last 
thing  written,  but  the  preacher  need  not.  If  he  is 
young,  and  has  not  been  well  trained  in  his  subject, 
perhaps  better  not.  He  is  there  to  declare  the  eternal, 
which  is  always  in  the  van,  equally  present,  equally 
real  for  every  soul,  everlasting,  final,  insuperable  for 
every  age.  He  is  not  in  the  pulpit,  primarily,  as  the 
place  where  he  can  get  most  scope  for  his  own 
individuahty,  and  most  freedom  for  his  own 
idiosyncrasy.  He  is  there,  as  the  servant  both  of  the 
Word  and  the  Church,  to  do  a  certain  work,  to  de- 
clare a  certain  message,  to  discharge  a  certain  trust. 
He  is  not  in  the  pulpit  as  the  roomiest  place  he  has 
found  to  enable  him  to  be  himself,  and  develop 
his  genius.  Some  young  preachers  are  more  con- 
cerned about  their  own  freedom  than  their  people's 
service.  They  are  prone  to  think  they  must  get 
freedom  to  develop  their  individuality  before  they 
h9.ve  any  positive  idea  what  they  are  to  do.    But  you 


I04   The  Preacher  and  his  Church 

cannot  develop  your  individuality  except  obliviously, 
in  the  doing  of  some  definite  objective  thing.  With- 
out that  you  are  taking  yourself  too  seriously. 
You  are  but  "  pottering  at  the  pyramid  of  your 
own  existence,"  or  modelling  yourself  in  clay. 
No,  you  "  are  taken  into  Heaven  backwards."  You 
must  grow  in  the  doing  of  some  definite  thing,  to 
learn  which  thing  and  the  handling  of  it  your  indi- 
viduality ought  to  go  to  a  very  severe  school.  Your 
duty  is  not  to  be  yourself.  "To  thyself  be  true  "  is 
not  a  Christian  precept.  It  is  automatic  for  the  Chris- 
tian man,  whose  one  concern  is  to  be  true  to  Christ. 
The  first  thing  due  even  to  yourself  is  to  go  to 
school.  Learn.  Find  a  master.  Let  the  past  and  its 
trust  make  you  yourself  !  The  first  duty  of  a  man  is 
not  to  assert  a  freedom,  nor  to  use  a  private  judgment, 
but  to  find  an  absolute  master.  There  is  put  into 
the  preacher's  hands  a  trust,  a  message,  which  is  not 
merely  like  the  artist's,  the  subjective  trust  of  genius 
with  a  responsibihty  as  to  how  it  shall  be  used  ;  but  it 
is  the  objective  trust  of  the  Gospel,  of  a  positive 
word  which  he  must  deliver  however  it  may  affect 
his  self -culture.  Any  genius  that  he  has  can  but 
enrich  his  Gospel.  He  is  given  the  word  of  a  foregone 
and  final  revelation — not  its  idea  but  its  word,  not 
its  surmise  but  its  arrival,  not  its  conception  but  its 
visitation,  not  its  intuition  but  its  revelation,  some- 
thing which  is  his  because  of  its  insight  into  him  rather 
than  his  insight  into  it,  something  wherein  he  is 
known  rather  than  knows,  something  finally  done 
which  is  the  root  of  all  our  best  doing.     The  King- 


or  Preaching  as  Worship     105 

dom  of  God  is  among  us,  and  has  long  been 
among  us.  Such  is  the  standing  message  of  the 
Church,  and  it  is  at  once  the  source  and  the  Hmit 
of  her  theological  liberty.  It  is  the  Gospel  of  the 
achieved  more  than  the  call  to  achieve.  It  bids 
us  not  to  make,  so  much  as  to  rest  in  something 
we  find  made.  It  teaches  us  that  all  good  we  do 
is  but  the  energy  in  us  of  the  best  already  done. 
It  is  an  opus  operatum.  That  is  the  standing  word  of 
Gospel.  And  the  business  of  each  preacher  in 
charge  of  a  flock  is  to  translate  to  his  small  Church 
this  message  and  content  of  the  great  Church,  that 
he  may  integrate  the  small  Church  into  the  great,  and 
that  he  and  it  together  may  swell  the  transmission 
of  the  Word  to  the  world.  That  is  the  true  Catholicism, 
the  universalizing  of  the  universal  Word.  That  is 
the  principle  which  makes  a  Church  out  of  a  sect  or 
conventicle,  and  puts  a  preacher  in  the  true  apostoHc 
succession.  The  true  succession  is  the  true  inheri- 
tance of  the  eternal  Word,  and  not  the  due  concatena- 
tion of  its  agents.  The  great  apostolate  is  one,  not 
in  the  heredity  of  a  historic  line  but  in  the  solidarity 
of  a  historic  Gospel,  not  in  a  continuous  stream  but 
in  an  organic  Word. 

§ 
We  have  thus  some  guide  to  answering  the  question 
whether  a  minister's  first  duty  is  to  his  Church  or 
to  the  world.  If  we  must  choose,  in  what  is  perhaps 
a  false  dilemma,  it  is  to  his  Church.  The  duty  to  the 
world  is  a  joint  duty  of  preacher  and  Church. 
Churches  are  always  forgetting  this,  and  reducing 


io6   The  Preacher  and  his  Church 

preachers  to  priests  in  spite  of  themselves  by 
making  everything  turn  on  the  preacher.  It  is 
part  of  the  price  that  we  pay  for  popular  preachers 
that  we  fall  into  a  way  of  thinking  as  if,  when  a 
gifted  speaker  appears,  the  main  duty  of  the  Church 
is  to  give  him  his  platform,  or  even  his  pedestal,  and 
then  stand  out  of  his  way.  Hence  manifold  mischief 
to  preacher.  Church,  and  Gospel ;  the  cossetting 
of  the  preacher's  selfwill,  the  elimination  of  the 
communal  will,  the  deflection  of  the  will  of  God. 
The  task  of  the  great  preacher  is  at  bottom  the  task 
of  the  smaller  preacher  who  can  but  be  faithful. 
It  is  to  act  upon  the  world  through  his  Church  and 
not  merely  from  his  Church.  His  Church  is  not  the 
arena  for  his  individualism  (far  less  the  pedestal  of  his 
vanity)  but  its  school.  A  man  who  is  truly,  through 
the  Word,  the  agent  of  the  great  Church  wiU  never 
become  the  mere  exploiter  of  his  own  Church.  The 
captive  of  the  Gospel  will  never  lord  it  in  the  Lord's 
house,  nor  simply  use  the  flock  he  is  there  to  feed. 


There  are  some  consequences  that  follow,  if  we 
grasp  the  great  principle  that  the  sermon  is  an 
essential  part  of  the  worship. 

I.  The  minister  (as  I  have  said)  may  not  use  the 
pulpit  merely  for  the  exposition  of  his  own  views. 
Any  views  of  his  must  be  given  as  such,  and  be  used, 
directly  or  indirectly,  for  the  ruling  purpose  of  the 
message  from  God.  In  proportion  as  he  puts  in 
the  front  views  and  opinions  of  his  he  may  expect 


or  Preaching  as  Worship     107 

public  abstension,  or  contradiction,  from  those  who 
have  differing  views.  Farther,  the  minister  may 
not  sacrifice  the  pulpit  to  mere  instruction,  mere 
lectures,  or  intellectual  or  aesthetic  treats.  Let 
the  lecture  room  or  the  Bible  Class  be  used  for  that. 
Of  course  I  speak  of  such  habitual  use  of  the  pulpit, 
not  of  exceptional  occasions. 

2.  As  a  corollary  of  this  it  is  the  preacher's  duty, 
in  most  cases,  to  touch  questions  of  Bible  criticism 
only  in  so  far  as  they  clear  the  ground  for  a  real 
and  positive  Gospel.  The  structure  of  the  Bible 
may  be  discussed  in  the  pulpit  only  in  so  far  as  it 
affects  the  history  of  revelation,  and  not  merely 
of  religion.  The  popular  religion  of  Israel  is  one 
thing,  and  the  divine  revelation  that  gradually 
emerged  through  it  and  subdued  it  is  another. 
And  though  it  is  no  part  of  the  preacher's  work  to 
treat  of  the  religion  of  Israel  for  its  own  sake,  yet 
it  is  his  to  disentangle  those  parts  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment where  the  revelation  of  God  is  forcing  its  way 
through  the  popular  religion,  in  ways  which  even  the 
writers  themselves  but  dimly  understood.  Still  the 
preacher  is  not  an  academic  ;  he  is  an  evangelist. 
The  minister's  conscience  is  not  scientific  but 
pastoral.  For  this  purpose  he  must  often  exercise 
a  discreet  reserve  as  to  scientific  truth  in  the  interest 
of  higher  truth,  or  truth  on  the  whole. 

Although  we  hold  the  doctrine  sound 
For  life  outliving  hearts  of  youth, 
Yet  who  would  preach  it  as  a  truth 

To  those  that  eddy  round  and  round  ? 


io8   The  Preacher  and  his  Church 

The  thinker  and  the  scholar  have  a  freedom,  and 
even  a  duty,  which  do  not  belong  to  the  pastor  who 
has  a  cure  of  souls.  The  savant  may  owe  to  the 
public,  or  the  lecturer  to  his  class,  what  the  preacher 
does  not  owe  to  his  charge.  To  rend  a  Church  on  a 
point  of  speculative  theology  mostly  argues  some 
tactlessness  on  the  preacher's  part,  or  a  misconcep- 
tion of  his  office,  or  an  egoistic  sense  of  duty.  There 
may  be  many  points  on  which  he  should  keep  silence, 
partly  because  he  or  his  people  are  not  ready,  partly 
because  these  are  points  which  do  not  directly 
concern  his  Gospel.  He  should  not  allow  his  hand 
to  be  forced,  especially  by  outsiders.  No  outsider 
has  his  responsibility,  nor,  indeed,  any  insider 
either.  He  should  be  the  best  judge  about  his  own 
reserves  as  pastor.  And  he  should  not  force  the 
convictions  of  his  people.  Of  course  if  the  first 
charge  on  him  were  the  integrity  of  pure  doctrine 
(as  was  once  thought),  if  he  were  one  of  the  theo- 
logians he  derides,  then  perhaps  he  ought  to 
treat  his  Church  as  a  class  and  at  once  indicate  his 
departure  from  tradition.  But  his  charge  is  to 
educate  those  people  not  in  a  correct  theology,  old 
or  new,  but  in  a  niighty  Gospel.  He  is  a  minister 
of  the  Gospel,  not  a  professor  of  scientific  theology. 
"  There  are  truths  we  must  say  to  all,  and  truths  we 
should  say  to  some  ;  and  there  are  truths  we  can 
only  tell  to  those  who  ask."  It  is  not  the  preacher's 
duty  to  tell  everything  he  knows  about  the  Bible  ; 
but  it  is  his  duty  to  tell  everything  he  knows  about 
the  Gospel,  and,  in  this  reduced  yet  enlarged  sense. 


or  Preaching  as  Worship     109 

in  this  plenary  but  not  exhaustive  sense,  to  declare 
the  whole  counsel  of  God.  He  has  to  give  the 
Gospel  its  divine  place  in  knowledge,  and  not  know- 
ledge a  supreme  place  in  the  Gospel.  The  whole 
counsel  of  God,  not  the  whole  results  of  scholarship, 
is  the  preacher's  burthen — these  last  only  when  they 
remove  obstacles  from  the  Gospel,  or  enrich  its 
message.  It  is  no  business  of  the  preacher,  at  the 
stated  occasions  of  worship,  to  enlarge  on  the  strati- 
fication of  the  Pentateuch,  or  the  postexilian  origin 
of  the  Psalms  ;  unless  he  is  engaged  in  opening  larger 
sweeps  of  God's  method  of  revelation,  or  expounding 
Christ's  true  relation  to  the  Old  Testament,  as  its 
fulfilment,  and  not  its  professor. 

3.  We  discourage  the  position  of  those  who  are 
impatient  of  the  sermon,  who  walk  out  when  it 
comes  on,  or  who  paralyse  preachers  by  a  demand 
for  brevity  before  everything  else.  I  speak  of  those 
who  do  so  on  the  ground  that  they  go  to  Church  to 
worship  God.  I  should  like  to  say  here  that  in  my 
humble  judgment  the  demand  for  short  sermons  on 
the  part  of  Christian  people  is  one  of  the  most  fatal 
influences  at  work  to  destroy  preaching  in  the  true 
sense  of  the  word.  How  can  a  man  preach  if  he  feel 
throughout  that  the  people  set  a  watch  upon  his  hps. 
Brevity  may  be  the  soul  of  wit,  but  the  preacher  is 
not  a  wit.  And  those  who  say  they  want  Uttle 
sermon  because  they  are  there  to  worship  God  and 
not  hear  man,  have  not  grasped  the  rudiments  of  the 
first  idea  of  Christian  worship.  They  but  represent 
the  indifference  of  the  natural  man,  his  Catholicism. 


no   Tie  Preacher  and  his  Church 

They  but  swell  that  Protestant  Catholicism  which 
is  preparing  so  rich  a  harvest  in  due  course  for 
Rome.  For  remember  that  Catholicism  is  the 
Christianity  of  the  natural  man.  It  is  easy  with 
human  nature.  You  cannot  quench  the  preacher 
without  kindhng  the  priest.  If  the  preachers  are  not 
satisfactory,  let  the  Church  take  steps  to  make  them 
so.  If  they  bore  the  people,  let  the  people  not  be 
too  patient.  But  let  us  not  go  wrong  as  to  what 
preaching  is  for  the  Gospel,  or  for  any  Church  that 
is  in  earnest  with  the  Gospel./  A  Christianity  of 
short  sermons  is  a  Christianity  of  short  iibre.\ 


THE    PREACHER    AND   THE    AGE 


IV 

The  Preacher  and  the   Age 

The  question  raised  in  the  last  lecture  as  to  the 
preacher's  attitude  to  the  world  is  worth  closer  defini- 
tion. Is  his  mental  attitude  to  the  world,  to  all  that 
passes  as  civilization,  or  culture,  to  be  one  of  isolation 
or  accommodation  ?  I  am  not  asking  now  whether 
he  should  know  the  results  of  contemporary  culture, 
nor  how  far,  if  he  knows  them,  he  ought  to  press 
them  on  his  own  people.  I  am  asking  whether  he 
should  do  much  or  little  in  construing  his  own 
conception  of  his  message  in  the  mental  vernacular 
of  his  time  ?  It  is  not  here  a  question  of  pedagogy 
with  his  charge,  but  of  his  theology  and  his  truth. 
It  is  a  larger  question  than  concerns  his  procedure 
or  style  with  the  public.  It  concerns  his  Gospel 
and  its  intellectual  content.  Shall  he  become  here 
aU  things  to  all  men  ;  shall  he  use  here  the  oppor- 
tunism that  he  may  freely  use  in  practical  affairs, 
where  he  has  to  work  with  other  men  rather  than 
upon  them  ?  Or  shall  he,  at  the  other  extreme, 
deliver  a  message  manifestly,  and  almost  aggres- 
sively, independent  of  the  fashions  of  thought,  with 
small  concern  whether  men  hear  or  forbear  ? 

p.p.  113  8 


114   The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

Shall  he  use  the  old  categories  and  terms  of  the 
Gospel  like  redemption  (always,  of  course,  in  a 
living  way,  and  not  as  a  dead  orthodoxy)  ?  Or 
shall  he  be  eager  to  discard  such  terms  as  being 
''  the  language  of  Canaan  "  ;  and  shall  he  seize  on 
the  latest  thing  in  thought  or  action,  and  force  his 
message  into  wholly  modern  terms  ?  Shall  he 
discard  redemption  and  take  up  with  evolution  ? 
Shall  he  reject  atonement  and  speak  only  of  sacrifice  ? 
Shall  he  cease  to  think  evangelically  if  only  he 
think  ethically  ?  Shall  he  give  up  speaking  of  faith, 
and  talk  of  spirituality  ?  Shall  he  forswear  reve- 
lation for  the  God-consciousness,  and  drop  from  his 
vocabulary  a  word  like  incarnation  to  make  room 
for  immanence  ?  Shall  he  be  silent  about  the 
Church  in  order  to  speak  of  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
or  say  little  even  about  that,  that  he  may  not  repel 
those  who  will  only  hear  about  the  brotherhood  of 
man  ?  Should  he  give  up  alluding  to  the  bond  of 
the  Spirit,  and  dilate  upon  sympathies  and  affi- 
nities ?  That  is  to  say,  are  the  intelligible  terms  of 
his  message  to  be  given  it  chiefly  by  current 
thought  ?  Is  its  substance  so  poor,  its  matter  so 
impotent,  that  it  has  been  unable  to  frame  a  per- 
manent terminology  for  its  own  spiritual  experi- 
ences, and  is  forced  to  borrow  and  adapt  the 
current  language  of  the  cultured  natural  man  ? 
Is  the  preacher's  terminology  to  have  regard  only 
to  men's  business  and  their  bosoms,  to  the  voca- 
bulary of  commerce  and  affection  ?  And  must 
he  cast  off  the  specific  language  created  and  con- 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    115 

secrated  by  classic  Christian  experience  because  it 
is  theological  and  non-natural  ?  If  he  keep  any 
theology,  is  it  to  be  adjusted  entirely  to  modem 
thought  without  any  call  made  on  modem  thought 
to  adjust  itself  to  a  theology  given  in  the  Gospel  and 
pecuUar  or  inevitable  to  it  ?  Is  his  mind,  for  all  its 
heavenly  birth  and  lineage,  to  be  entirely  naturalized 
in  the  better  quarters  of  the  world  ?  Or  is  he  to  be 
palpably  less  at  home  in  the  world's  ways  of  thinking 
and  writing,  a  stranger  and  a  sojourner  as  all  his 
fathers  were  ? 

An  acute  form  of  the  difficulty  occurs  when  a 
preacher  is  faced  by  the  question.  Shall  I  preach  to 
the  modem  age,  whether  by  my  theology  or  my 
methods,  at  the  cost  of  rending  my  Church  ?  Well, 
with  a  man  of  real  culture,  S5niipathy,  and  good 
sense,  (I  have  said)  probably  the  dilemma  need  not 
occur.  In  very  many  cases  where  such  crises  arise 
they  arise  from  the  preacher's  lack  of  sympathy  and 
judgment.  Either  that,  or  he  lacks  a  sense  of  responsi- 
bility for  anything  but  what  I  have  called  the  unload- 
ing of  his  own  egoistic  conscience.  But  if  the  crisis  do 
come,  if  a  headlong  poUcy  of  vigour  and  rigour  call  for 
a  decisive  answer,  it  would  be  this,  in  my  humble 
judgment.  A  man  whose  action  on  public  affairs 
promises  to  rend  his  Church  should  resign  his  Church, 
and  seek  one  that  will  go  solidly  with  him.  I  know 
it  is  a  very  difficult  question.  But  the  Church  is 
not  there  with  political  or  social  reform  for  its 
prime  object.  And  when  a  Free  Church  minister 
has    to    fight    his   people    for  liis  position    it    is 


1 1 6   The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

time  to  leave  it.  Victory  is  mostly  sterile  for 
him  ;  and  defeat  may  be  heartbreaking,  without 
the  dignity  of  the  Cross.  His  Church  is  not  there, 
as  I  have  said,  to  be  his  platform  merely,  but 
the  body  of  which  he  is  the  head  ;  he  must  animate 
it  with  his  principles  and  not  dissolve  it.  The  brain 
must  not  quarrel  with  the  nerves.  He  is  the  Church's 
organ  rather  than  the  Church  his.  His  first  duty 
is  to  the  Church.  His  whole  manhood  goes  primarily 
to  the  Church.  If  his  duty  to  the  pubhc  threatens 
to  destroy  his  Church,  then  he  should  release  himself 
and  his  Church  likewise.  The  order  of  obHgation  for 
a  preacher  is  first  to  the  Gospel  (in  its  nature,  not  its 
particular  applications),  second  to  his  Church,  third 
to  the  great  Church,  and  then  to  the  public.  He 
is  not  first  a  prophet  of  social  righteousness  but  an 
apostle  of  the  Gospel.  He  is  not  merely  an  agent  of 
the  ethical  kingdom.  Every  Christian  is  that.  But 
when  he  adopts  the  ministry  as  a  life  work,  he  adopts 
what  is  an  office  of  the  Church.  He  becomes  some- 
thing else  than  a  prophet,  and  something  more. 
He  represents  the  Spirit  which  abides  like  a  dove  and 
does  not  swoop  like  an  eagle.  He  accepts  the  con- 
ditions of  a  stable  society,  its  position,  its  aid,  and, 
along  with  these,  responsibihty  to  it.  His  place  is 
not  a  prerogative  of  his  own.  It  is  not  a  right  that 
belongs  to  him  by  his  mere  subjective  sense  of  a 
Charisma.     He  is  not  a  wandering  seer. 

§ 

In  all  such  cases  the  line  a  man  may  take  will  be 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    117 

much  affected  by  his  idiosyncrasy.  And  I  do  not 
say  that  it  ought  not,  so  long  as  we  understand  that 
idiosyncrasy  is  not  the  decisive  thing.  It  is  a 
question  here  of  the  principles  that  prescribe  the 
general  attitude  of  the  Church  to  the  world,  not  of  a 
man  to  his  circle.  For  these  large  principles  prescribe 
the  preacher's  attitude,  in  so  far  as  he  is  more  than 
the  victim  of  his  temperament  and  becomes  the 
servant  of  the  Gospel  in  a  Church.  And  from  this 
point  of  view  there  are  two  things  to  be  said  in 
answer  to  the  question  with  which  I  set  out. 

I.  First,  in  the  great  and  crucial  ages  of  the 
Church  she  saved  herself  and  her  word  by  taking 
the  attitude  of  detachment — not  to  say  intolerance— 
rather  than  accommodation.  She  faced  the  world 
with  a  boon  but  also  a  demand.  Is  there  no  intoler- 
ance in  the  Johannine  writings  ?  She  served  a  world 
she  would  not  obey,  in  the  name  of  a  mastery  it 
could  neither  confer  nor  withstand.  She  did  not 
lead  the  world,  nor  echo  it  ;  she  confronted  it.  If 
she  borrowed  the  thought,  the  organization,  the 
methods  of  the  world,  she  did  so  voluntarily.  And 
she  only  used  them  as  a  calculus.  She  was  but 
requisitioning  the  ladders  by  which  she  escaped  from 
the  world,  and  rose  to  its  command.  She  used  the 
alloy  not  to  debase  the  metal,  but  to  make  it  work- 
able, to  make  it  a  currency. 

The  mention  of  the  Johannine  writings  reminds  us 
that  the  first  and  greatest  of  these  crises  was  the 
conflict  with  paganism,  and  especially  with  gnosticism 
in  the  early  centuries.     And  what  was  it  that  then 


1 1 8    The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

saved  the  Church  for  the  future  and  for  the  Gospel  ? 
It  was  not  the  apologists  nor  the  line  they  took  in 
presenting  Christianity  as  the  noblest  of  all  the 
cultures,  the  most  comprehensive  of  all  the  philo- 
sophies, the  most  efficient  of  all  the  ethics,  the  con- 
summation of  prophecies  immanent  in  pagan 
humanity,  and  the  apotheosis  of  all  its  latent  powers. 
That  was  a  line  that  developed  the  gnostic  tendency, 
as  it  is  the  leading  line  in  the  gnosticism  of  to-day. 
But  the  situation  was  saved  by  the  other  line, 
by  Athanasius,  who  developed  everything  that  dis- 
tinguished his  position  out  of  the  principle  of  the 
experienced  redemption  of  a  ruined  world.  To  ex- 
press this  unutterable  reality  he  had  to  do  as  Paul 
did,  to  capture  and  transform  the  speculation  of  the 
day  ;  and  he  had  even  to  coin  a  new  metaphysic. 
He  converted  the  past  more  than  he  developed  it. 
He  descended  on  the  world,  like  the  true  preacher  he 
was,  rather  than  arose  from  it.  He  defied  it  rather 
than  deified  it  (if  the  quip  may  pass).  He  made  the 
Church  victorious  by  making  it  unpopular.  He 
compelled  the  world  to  accommodate  itself  to  him 
by  preserving  an  evangelical  isolation  from  it.  He 
overcame  the  religious  liberalism  of  his  day  by 
thought  too  profound  to  be  welcome  to  the  lazy 
pubhc,  and  too  positive  to  be  welcome  to  the 
amateur  discursive  schools. 

And  perhaps  the  Church  has  never,  since  that  time, 
been  in  a  position  with  the  world  so  crucial  as  it  is 
at  the  present  day.  The  old  gnosis  has  never  since 
risen  in  such  critical  and  yet  plausible  antagonism 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    119 

to  the  Gospel  till  its  recrudescence  in  our  own  time. 
The  paganism  of  the  Renaissance  and  its  humanism 
was  threatening  enough  ;  but  it  rested  more  on  the 
classic  scholarship  and  taste  of  a  few  than  on  the 
vague  and  romantic  intuitions  which,  in  the  religious 
experiments  of  to-day,  appeal  to  the  general  public, 
borrow  the  mantle  of  Christianity,  and  simulate  the 
voice  of  the  authentic  Word.  So  that  even  apostles 
of  that  Word  are  found  speaking  rather  as  adven- 
turers of  the  soul.  They  are  more  drawn  to  the 
gnosis  of  speculation,  the  occultism  of  science,  the 
romance  of  the  heart,  the  mysticism  of  imagination, 
than  to  the  historic  and  ethical  spirituality  of  the 
evangelical  Christ  the  crucified.  Now  there  will  be 
no  doubt  of  your  popularity  if  you  take  that 
gnostic  course  with  due  eloquence,  taste,  and  con- 
fidence. For  it  expresses  the  formless  longings 
and  dim  cravings  of  the  subjectivity  of  the  day. 
But  it  has  not  the  future,  because  it  misses  the 
genuine  note  of  the  Gospel,  and  the  objective  Word 
and  deed  in  the  true  moral  crisis  of  the  Soul. 
You  will  add  religion  to  the  vivid  interests  of  the 
pubHc  ;  but  you  will  not  come  with  that  authority 
which  men  at  once  resent  and  crave. 

The  capture  of  the  Western  Church  by  classical 
philosophy  in  the  shape  of  medieval  scholasticism 
was  very  complete  ;  but  it  was  not  comparable  to 
what  would  have  happened  had  gnosticism  got  the 
upper  hand  in  the  first  crisis.  For  Aristotle  did 
not  represent  the  religious  element  in  paganism  which 
gnosticism  exploited,  the  spiritual,  imaginative,  kind- 


I20   The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

ling,  popular  element.  Gnosticism  was  romantic,  it 
was  classicism  turned  romantic.  Its  roots  are  dim 
because  they  are  outside  the  Uterature  by  which 
classicism  has  become  known  to  us  for  the  most 
part.  It  represented  that  element  in  paganism 
which  was  not  contributed  by  cultured  Greece  so 
much  as  held  by  Hellenism  in  common  with  other 
paganisms,  held  by  it  outside  the  literary  class, 
and  chiefly  developed  in  the  dreamy  East.  It 
stood  for  the  deep  human  passion  to  be  redeemed ; 
though  it  did  not  realize,  as  historic  Christianity 
alone  did,  the  moral  depth  of  the  need,  or  the  holy 
passion  in  God  to  redeem.  The  redemption  which 
was  the  passion  of  Asia  was  a  much  more  intense 
though  a  much  less  positive  and  effectual  thing  than 
that  demanded  by  the  more  free  and  ethical  West. 
It  moved  among  spiritual  processes  rather  than 
moral  and  historic  acts.  And  it  steamed  up,  like 
slow  and  spectral  vapours,  from  the  cauldron  of 
the  prisoned,  seething  world,  rather  than  issued  in 
the  effectual  shape  of  a  hero  and  a  deed. 

Now,  had  this  early  gnosticism  had  its  way  it 
would  have  stifled  the  young  Church  in  its  cradle  ; 
whereas  medieval  Aristotelianism  only  infected  a 
Church  whose  evangelical  constitution  was  shown 
by  the  Reformation  to  be  now  too  mature  to  suc- 
cumb. In  the  early  period  the  very  affinities  of 
gnosticism  with  the  redemptive  idea  in  Christianity 
increased  the  danger  by  their  plausible  advances  to  the 
burdened  soul's  demand  ;  and  they  gave  the  gnostics 
a  huge  advantage  over  the  whiggish  apologists  and 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    121 

their  liberal  Christianity,  which  ignored  that  idea. 
But  the  Gospel  triumphed,  and,  thanks  to  Athana- 
sius,  by  the  middle  ages  the  evangehcal  idea  had 
become  so  imbedded  in  the  constitution  of  the  Church 
that  Aristotle  could  not  smother  it,  and  it  leaped  to 
life  in  the  Reformation.  Doubtless  the  Reformation 
issue  was  one  of  life  and  death.  But  not  so  pro- 
foundly as  in  the  gnostic  strife.  It  was  between 
two  sections  of  the  Church  ;  it  was  not  between 
the  Church  and  the  world,  the  Church  and 
civilization,  the  Church  and  humanity,  God  and 
man.  Everybody  in  civilization  then  belonged  to 
the  Church.  And  even  after  the  Reformation  it  was 
only  a  question  of  which  Church  a  man  belonged 
to  ;  it  was  not  whether  he  belonged  to  Church  or 
world,  whether  he  was  Christian  or  pagan. 

But  to-day  it  is  the  latter  question  that  we  ask. 
The  bulk  of  the  civilized  public  of  Europe,  practically, 
either  belong  to  no  Church,  or  they  are  indifferent  to 
which  Church  they  belong.  And  most  culture  is  rather 
with  the  world  than  with  the  Gospel.  We  are  thus 
in  the  most  critical  time  since  the  first  centuries. 
And,  if  history  teach  us  rightly,  does  it  not  teach  us 
that  the  main  policy  of  the  Church  must  be  the  same 
now  as  then  ?  It  must  be  self-sufficient,  autonomous, 
independent.  I  say  the  main  policy,  for  the  accom- 
modations to  modern  knowledge  and  modem  criti- 
cism must  be  many.  But  amid  all  these  adjustments 
to  the  world  of  natural  and  rational  culture,  the 
Church  must  in  principle  be  detached.  With  all 
her   liberalism   she   must   be   positive.     She   must 


122    The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

insist  on  the  autonomy  of  faith  in  the  matter  of 
knowledge  and  certainty.  She  must  descend  on  the 
world  out  of  heaven  from  God.  Her  note  is  the 
supernatural  note  which  distinguishes  incarnation 
from  immanence,  redemption  from  evolution,  the 
Kingdom  of  God  from  mere  spiritual  progress,  and 
the  Holy  Spirit  from  mere  spiritual  process.  She 
must  never  be  opportunist  at  the  cost  of  being 
evangeUcal,  liberal  at  the  cost  of  being  positive, 
too  broad  for  the  Cross's  narrow  way.  And  she  must 
produce  that  impression  on  the  whole,  that  impression 
of  detachment  from  the  world  and  of  descent  on 
it.  The  minister  may  be  licensed  by  the  Church, 
but  the  Church,  as  Christ's  great  minister  for  the 
kingdom  on  earth,  depends  on  no  licence  either  from 
the  schools,  the  world,  or  the  state.  The  Saviour  of 
the  world  was  not  made  or  moulded  by  the  world  ; 
and  the  world  knew,  and  still  knows  in  Him  a  presence 
that  must  be  either  obeyed  or  destroyed.  He  always 
looked  down  on  the  world  He  had  to  save.  He 
always  viewed  it  from  God's  side,  and  in  God's  in- 
terest. He  always  stood  for  God  against  the  men 
he  would  save.  It  was  indeed  with  divine  pity  he 
looked  down,  and  not  contempt  ;  but  it  was  with 
pity,  it  was  not  with  co-equal  love.  It  was  not  the 
love  of  give  and  take,  but  the  mercy  which  gives  all 
and  claims  all. 

And  this  must  be  the  note  of  the  pulpit.  It  must 
of  course  be  liberal.  That  is  to  say,  it  must  not  be 
obscurantist.  It  must  give  knowledge  its  place 
and  modify  accordingly.     It  must  leave  to  the  region 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    123 

of  knowledge  much  that  used  to  be  held  part  of  saving 
faith.  If  you  are  not  humane,  as  civilization  under- 
stands it,  you  do  not  speak  the  language  of  the  time. 
You  must  wear  the  intelligible  forms  of  Hving  faith, 
the  fair  humanities  of  kind  reUgion.  But  still  more 
must  you  be  divine  and  positive,  else  you  do  not 
declare  the  Word  of  God  which  is  Humanity's 
one  hope.  We  do  not  approach  men  in  order  to 
interpret  them  to  themselves,  as  a  genius  might 
do,  but  to  interpret  to  them  God  in  Christ.  Christ 
is  ours  not  because  He  represents  our  best  but 
because  He  redeems  our  worst,  not  because  He  set 
a  seal  to  our  manhood  but  because  He  saves  it,  not 
because  He  elicits  it  but  because  He  gives  it.  You 
must  not  tell  men  that  the  way  to  understand  God 
is  to  understand  the  human  heart,  nor  that  the  way 
to  be  true  to  men  is  to  be  true  to  their  own  selves. 
We  are  not  true  to  men  till  we  are  in  Christian  rela- 
tion to  them;  and  that  comes  from  being  true  to 
Christ  and  to  the  Word  of  His  grace.  As  angels  of 
the  Churches  you  must  descend  on  men.  That  must 
always  be  the  ruhng  note  of  your  word  and  work. 
If  you  wash  His  disciples'  feet  it  must  be  not  merely 
as  a  poor  serving  brother  but  with  the  kind  dignity 
of  the  agent  and  apostle  of  Christ.  And  you  must 
always  so  speak  as  the  oracles  of  God,  as  the  am- 
bassadors of  Christ,  and  king's  messengers.  You 
must  always  tell  men  that  they  can  never  be  right 
with  each  other  except  as  they  are  right  with  God 
in  Christ  and  in  the  atoning  Cross  of  Christ. 


12^   The  Preacher  and  the  Age 


§ 

.,  2.  So  the  second  thing  to  be  said  is  this.  If  we 
accommodate  ourselves  to  the  world  in  one  way  we 
must  be  exigent  in  another.  Our  demands  must 
never  be  submerged  by  our  sympathies.  The  more 
kind  we  are,  the  more  lofty  we  must  be  with  our 
kindness.  The  goodness  of  God  must  never  minish 
the  severity  of  God.  His  gifts  of  love  must  never 
obscure  the  prior  claim  of  holiness.  His  grace  must 
never  abolish  His  judgment.  Fatherhood  is  not  the 
fatherhood  of  Christ's  God  if  it  erase  from  our 
faith  the  necessity  of  an  Atonement  offered  not  to 
man  alone  but  to  God.  The  love  by  which  God's 
offspring  are  called  sons  of  God  is  not  His  kindness 
to  His  creatures,  but  it  is  a  special  manner  of  love 
bestowed  upon  us  with  the  gift  of  Christ  and  not 
with  the  gift  of  existence,  by  a  Redeemer  and  not 
a  Creator  (i  John  i.  3). 

But  the  particular  bearing  of  the  principle  in  my 
mind  at  the  moment  is  this. — If  we  so  accommodate 
ourselves  to  the  world  as  to  reduce  the  bulk  of  our 
creed  we  must  insist  on  more  serious  attention,  more 
concentration,  by  the  world  upon  the  quality  of  our 
faith.  Reduction  of  belief  on  our  part  must  be 
balanced  by  concentration  of  faith  on  the  part  of 
the  public. 

Reduce  the  burden  of  beHef  we  must.  The  old 
orthodoxy  laid  on  men's  believing  power  more  than 
it  could  carry.  That  orthodoxy,  that  Protestant 
scholasticism,  was  in  its  way  thorough.      It  went 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    125 

in  its  way  as  Ibsen's  Brand  did  in  his — it  was  all  or 
nothing.  It  moved  altogether  if  it  moved  at  all.  It 
attracted  the  all-or-nothing  spirits,  whose  tendency 
was  to  move  like  a  prairie  fire,  covering  the  whole  area 
but  spreading  only  in  one  plane.  It  was  compre- 
hensive and  acute  rather  than  profound  and  subtle. 
It  threatened  to  organize  the  faith  clean  out  of  belief. 
It  seemed  to  sacrifice  colour  to  drawing,  and  life  to 
form.  It  had  no  atmosphere,  no  flexibility.  And, 
great  as  it  could  be,  it  came  at  last  to  be  more  vast 
than  great.  It  brought  to  men  more  to  carry 
than  power  to  carry  it.  And  like  its  predecessor,  the 
medieval  scholasticism,  it  was  disintegrated  by  its 
own  subtlety  ;  it  crumbled  through  its  own  acute- 
ness  ;  it  died  of  its  own  insatiable  dialectic  ;  and 
fell  of  its  own  thin  and  ambitious  imperialism. 

This  appeared  conspicuously  in  regard  to  the 
claims  made  for  the  Bible  as  replacing  the  Church. 
'  The  whole  Bible  or  none,'  it  was  said.  '  Take  but 
a  stone  away  and  the  edifice  subsides.'  This  came 
of  the  Bible  having  been  reduced  to  a  fabric  instead 
of  an  organism.  And  how  many  sceptics  that  course 
has  made  !  How  many  Pharisees  !  How  many 
spiritual  tragedies  !  If  I  were  a  Secularist  I  would 
not  touch  by  assault  the  doctrine  of  plenary  verbal 
inspiration  and  inerrancy.  I  should  let  it  work  freely 
as  one  of  my  best  adjutants.  But  this  all-or-nothing- 
ness  applied  also  to  the  whole  system  of  Protestant 
scholasticism.  Dislodge  but  a  pillar  of  the  porch 
and  the  house  fell  in.  Lop  a  bough  and  the  tree 
died.     Train  a  branch  another  way  and  it  pined. 


126   The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

The  habit  of  mind,  I  say,  was  in  its  way  thorough. 
And,  indeed,  I  often  wish  we  had  the  like  thoroughness 
of  design  and  excellence  of  building  on  the  founda- 
tions of  the  present.  But  we  now  build  with  a 
sense  that  systems  do  not  last,  and  so  we  do  not  build 
well.  We  build  but  to  house  a  generation  or  a 
couple.  The  systems  we  frame  are  all  revisable, 
all  on  lease  ;  and  the  framers  naturally  leave  much 
to  the  tenants  and  inspectors  of  the  future.  It  was 
otherwise  with  our  fathers.  In  aeternum  Pinxerunt. 
The  systems  they  built  aimed  at  finaUty.  Every  part 
was  of  the  same  steel.  The  nuts  and  screws  were 
of  the  eternal.  Nuance,  evolution  was  an  unheard-of 
thing.  So  that  when  the  end  came  it  came  for  many 
as  it  has  been  immortally  symbolized  for  us  by  the 
American  spirit  of  comedy  in  Lowell's  The  One  Hoss 
Shay.  That  must  be  the  end  of  every  system  which 
aims  at  being  universal  and  final. 

But  in  such  systems  we  have  ceased  to  believe. 
Finahty  is  but  in  God  and  His  act.  With  a  final 
system  we  should  have  no  God.  The  finality 
would  then  not  be  a  living  soul  but  a  scheme.  We 
believe,  on  the  one  hand,  that  scientific  theology 
lives  the  growing  life  of  every  other  science,  in  re- 
spect of  its  element  of  knowledge  or  statement.  And 
we  believe,  on  the  other  hand,  that  salvation  is  not  a 
matter  of  scientific  theology,  but  of  personal  relation 
to  the  Gospel.  And  the  truth  of  the  Gospel  is  port- 
able in  proportion  to  its  power.  "  Few  things  are 
needful — or  one."  The  one  principle  of  holy  grace 
carries  in  it    all  Christ  and    Christianity.     A    few 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    127 

mighty  cohesive  truths  which  capture,  fire,  and  mould 
the  whole  soul  are  worth  much  more  than  a  correct 
conspectus  of  the  total  area  of  divine  knowledge — 
and  especially  for  the  preacher.  A  minimal  creed, 
an  ample  science,  a  maximal  faith — that  is  our  aim. 


There  is  one  misunderstanding  I  should  like  to 
avert.  When  I  speak  of  a  reduction  of  beHef  I  do 
not  mean  an  attenuation  of  belief.  I  do  not  mean  to 
discredit  an  ample  theology.  I  do  not  think  of 
consigning  the  greater  part  of  faith's  area  to  the 
region  of  Agnosticism,  and  compelling  the  mind  to  be 
satisfied  with  a  few  general  principles.  By  the 
reduction  of  belief  I  mean  reducing  the  amount  of  our 
claim  upon  the  belief  of  the  pubhc,  shortening  the 
articles  of  association,  so  to  say.  I  do  not  mean  that 
every  truth  of  theology  should  be  capable  of  veri- 
fication by  experience — the  pre-existence  of  Christ  is 
not.  Theological  truth  is  far  wider  than  experience. 
But  I  do  mean  that  we  should  not  base  the  Church's 
appeal  to  the  public  upon  truths  which  are  outside 
experience — meaning  Christian  experience.  In  ask- 
ing people  to  concentrate  more  upon  what  we  offer 
we  cease  asking  them  to  attend  to  what  they  have 
not  means  of  understanding.  We  ask  them  to  go  in 
upon  their  moral  experience  with  more  earnestness 
and  resolution.  We  would  remove  their  interest 
from  things  they  are  incompetent  to  solve,  and 
kindle  it  on  matters  that  appeal  to  their  own  soul, 
conscience,  and  destiny.     So  that  what  we  offer  is  not 


128    The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

so  much  a  new  system  of  theology  as  a  new  pronun- 
ciation of  theology.  It  is  theology  uttered  with  a 
change  of  accent.  The  stress  is  differently  distribu- 
ted. The  emphasis  falls  on  other  parts  of  the 
great  Word.  We  certainly  would  escape  from  the 
monotone  of  a  whole  system  of  equal  value  and  obli- 
gation in  all  parts.  And  we  would  dwell  with  but 
minor  force  upon  some  truths  which  are  not  so  much 
saving  truths  as  their  corollaries.  If  I  took  an  ex- 
ample of  what  I  mean,  I  would  say  that  we  ought  to 
restore  to  Christ's  Atoning  Cross  much  of  the  popular 
interest  so  easily  arrested  by  His  birth  and  its  manner. 
We  should  lean  but  lightly  on  the  Virgin  Birth,  which 
does  not  make  a  moral  appeal  to  us,  but  too  often 
appeals  to  a  ready  interest  either  in  a  baby  or  a  miracle ; 
and  we  should  bear  far  more  heavily  on  the  centre 
of  all  moral  action  and  regeneration  in  the  Cross, 
which  the  popular  mind  so  readily  shuns  because 
there  the  world  is  crucified  into  us  and  we  unto  the 
world.  And  a  like  transfer  of  emphasis  should  take 
place  from  the  truth  of  Christ's  pre-existence,  which 
is  outside  the  range  of  our  experience,  to  that  of  His 
risen  and  royal  life,  wherein  we  ourselves  are  made 
partakers  of  His  resurrection  and  vouchers  of  His 
real  presence.  So  that  in  the  order  of  importance 
we  should  go  to  the  world  first  of  all  with  the  Atoning 
Cross  which  is  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  grace ; 
second,  with  the  resurrection  of  Christ  which  is  the 
emergence  into  experience  of  the  new  life  won  for  us 
on  the  Cross ;  third  with  the  life,  character,  teach- 
ing, and  miracles   of  Christ ;    fourth  with  the  pre- 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    129 

existence  of  Christ,  whicli  is  a  corollary  of  His  Eternal 
Life,  and  only  after  such  things  with  the  Virgin 
Birth,  which  may  or  may  not  be  demanded  by 
the  rest.  It  is  not  a  case  of  denying  any  of  these 
points  or  even  challenging  them.  They  may  all  be 
accepted,  but  let  it  be  in  their  true  perspective,  the 
perspective  of  faith.  And  they  are  offered  to  the 
pubhc,  and  belief  is  claimed,  in  the  degree  of  their 
relevancy  to  a  vital  Christian  experience  of  the  one 
Christian  doctrine  of  grace.  For  when  we  carry 
reduction  to  its  length  we  condense  upon  that  one 
principle  and  power  of  grace  which  has  in  it  the 
promise  of  the  potency  of  all  the  soul's  Hfe  and  all 
Christian  truth. 

§ 

We  must  therefore  practise  a  reduction  of  belief 
and  with  it  a  redistribution  of  emphasis.  We 
must  call  in  our  main  army  from  hning  the 
long  ramparts.  We  must  rally  at  the  great  strate- 
gic forts  ;  and  from  them  command  with  our  new 
weapons,  firing  quick  and  carrying  far,  the  whole 
region  we  have  to  defend.  To  do  this  will  give  us 
fresh  impetus.  The  change  from  walls  to  guns  means 
the  change  from  defence  to  attack,  from  form  to 
life,  from  system  to  power.  It  is  a  change  which 
brings  immense  gain.  How  much  moral  force  we 
have  squandered  !  We  have  to  admit  frankly,  if 
sadly,  that  a  great  deal  of  what  hves  were  once  lost 
for,  and  hearts  broken,  and  torture  endured,  is  not 
worth  the  while.     What  an  awful  course  history  has 

p.p. 


130    The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

had  to  take,  to  teach  us  things  that  seem  so  simple 
now.  What  an  irony  it  all  is  !  Does  He  that  sits 
in  Heaven  laugh  ?  At  least  we  cannot  be  surprised 
that  some  should  think  He  does.  Heine  spoke  of 
the  great  Aristophanes  of  heaven.  Arnold  asks, 
Was  Heine  one  of  those  enigmatic  similes  ?  Is  the 
irony  of  Christ  in  the  Gospels  still  in  the  face  and 
grace  of  God  over  human  history  ?  Truly,  our  great 
simplicities  are  most  costly  and  elaborate  things. 
The  reason  why  they  seem  so  simple  now  is  because 
they  were  so  hard  and  bitter  then.  We  do  now 
almost  automatically  what  meant  once  labour  and 
sorrow.  We  enter  into  the  labours  and  deaths  of 
others  ;  and  we  see  clearly  only  from  the  shoulders 
of  greater  men  than  ourselves,  who  had  to  keep  their 
eyes  on  the  paths  for  our  sakes.  and  did  not  see  the 
land. 

§ 

But  now  if  we  do  thus  narrow  the  demand  on 
the  world  for  belief,  are  we  not  entitled  to  require 
that  this  retraction  of  claim  on  our  part  shall 
be  met  by  a  corresponding  concentration  on  the 
part  of  the  public  ?  If  we  bring  intellectual 
relief  we  must  plead  for  moral  attention,  the 
narrowness  of  intensity.  What  marks  the  modern 
man  is  the  mobility  and  dispersion  of  his  interest. 
And  what  does  that  mean  but  weakness  of  will,  the 
lack  of  power  to  attend,  to  decide,  to  choose  ?  Such 
irresolution  is  the  chief  of  all  reasons  for  the  lack  of 
response  to  Christ,  or  even  to  Christianity.  That  is 
why  such  large  sections  of  culture  have  no  part  or 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    131 

lot  in  Christ  ;  why  they  have  no  more  than  an 
interest  about  Him.  For  culture  in  many  cases  not 
only  does  not  exercise  the  will,  it  dissipates  it,  it  nar- 
cotises it.  Men  are  stupefied  morally  by  all  the  thou- 
sand impressions  of  the  hour.  They  are  quick  to  feel, 
and  keen  to  know  ;  but  they  are  not  only  slow,  they 
are  averse,  to  decide.  Yet  it  is  for  decision  that 
Christianity  calls,  nay,  it  is  for  decision  that  the 
energetic  universe  calls,  far  more  than  for  a  mere 
impression  in  response.  We  are  not  set  in  such  a 
world  as  this  simply  to  return  its  note  as  artists  or 
esthetes,  but  to  act.  And  Christ  asked  for  faith, 
which  is  an  energy  of  the  will,  far  oftener  than 
for  love,  which  is  a  movement  of  the  heart. 

And  in  this  respect  Christianity  can  endure,  not 
by  surrendering  itself  to  the  modern  mind  and 
modem  culture,  but  rather  by  a  break  with  it :  the 
condition  of  a  long  future  both  for  culture  and  the 
soul  is  the  Christianity  which  antagonizes  culture 
without  denying  its  place.  Culture  asks  but  a  half 
Gospel ;  and  a  half  Gospel  is  no  Gospel.  We  must, 
of  course,  go  some  way  to  meet  the  world,  but 
when  we  do  meet  we  must  do  more  than  greet.  A 
crisis  has  from  time  to  time  to  be  forced,  a  crisis 
of  the  will.  And  the  world,  which  is  not  unready  to 
profess  itself  enchanted  with  Christ,  must  be  con- 
verted to  Him,  and  subdued,  and  made  not  merely 
a  better  world,  but  another  world  reconciled  and 
redeemed.  A  new  departure  is  not  enough  ;  there 
must  be  a  new  creation.  Refinement  is  not  re- 
form ;   and  amelioration  is  not  regeneration 


132    The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

We  are  not  being  fairly  met  if  the  public  bestows 
upon  the  few  things  we  now  hold  crucial  no  more 
attention  or  effort  than  if  they  were  merely  a  sample 
handful  scooped  at  random  from  a  mass  of  loose  or 
languid  truths. 

It  is  very  singular  that  on  the  most  grave  concern 
of  life  a  serious  man  so  often  makes  up  his  mind  in 
an  offhand  way.  His  religious  views  are  of  the  most 
casual  kind.  He  seldom  really  takes  pains  with  the 
matter.  He  does  not  attend  to  it.  His  opinions  are 
a  sort  of  spontaneous  deposit  on  the  surface  of  his 
mind.  If  it  were  a  business  matter  he  would  go  into 
it.  If  it  were  a  scientific  question  he  would  train  his 
mind,  and  then  examine.  He  takes  business  and 
science  seriously.  But  his  rehgion  he  does  not. 
Scientific  people  who  begin  to  desire  some  acquaint- 
ance with  theology  will  betake  themselves,  not  to 
the  masters  of  that  discipline  as  they  would  with  any 
other  science,  but  to  popular  sciohsts  who  happen  to 
have  a  vogue.  It  is  not  a  matter  worth  study,  as  his- 
tory, Uterature,  philosophy,  economy,  or  the  markets 
are.  I  do  not  say  a  man's  religion  must  be  the 
result  of  professional  or  technical  study,  like  these 
subjects.  But  it  should  receive  no  less  earnest 
attention,  and  engage  him  no  less  seriously  and  per- 
sonally, and  not  be  taken  at  haphazard.  That 
casualness  is  the  source  of  most  of  the  confusion  of 
the  time.  Every  important  topic  of  human  dis- 
cussion seems  a  pathless  thicket  to  the  person  who 
gives  it  no  attention.  It  is  only  after  you  have  taken 
it  seriously  for  a  year  or  two  that  it  opens  into  clear- 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    133 

ness  and  order.  Religion  is  confused  and  pathless 
chiefly  to  those  who  treat  the  greatest  concerns  with 
most  levity.  And  it  is  clear  and  great  not  from 
without  the  Church,  but  from  within.  To  look  at 
a  building  like  the  Albert  Hall,  or  even  St.  Paul's, 
from  the  outside,  you  would  have  no  such  impres- 
sion of  its  vastness  or  grandeur  as  you  receive 
from  its  interior.  And  so  with  Christian  truth.  It 
is  really  and  mightily  true  only  from  within. 

Now  in  reducing  the  bulk  of  belief  we  do  far  more 
than  scoop  up  a  chance  handful  from  a  heap. 
That  is  not  how  we  arrive  at  the  few  mighty  beliefs 
we  select.  That  is  not  the  proper  principle,  or  the 
proper  method,  of  treating  the  ponderous  systems. 
We  must  proceed  by  a  serious  and  laborious  process. 
A  coherent  system  which  has  grown  obese  cannot 
be  reduced,  like  a  statue,  by  chipping,  or  paring, 
as  the  ignorant  critic  of  vigour  and  rigour  thinks. 
A  criticism  which  is  mere  surgery  is  out  of  place  when 
we  are  dealing  with  great  organic  systems  of  belief. 
The  methods  must  be  more  medical,  more  psychical, 
more  sympathetic,  more  in  the  nature  of  moral 
regimen,  and  less  in  the  way  of  amputation.  We 
must  not  cut  down,  but  work  down.  This  reduc- 
tion exercised  on  the  old  creeds  is  a  moral  act  or 
process.  It  is  not  merely  eclectic.  Reduction  is 
the  right  word.  It  is  working  the  huge  tissue  of 
orthodoxy  down  to  its  normal  bulk  and  place.  It 
means  acting  on  it  naturally  through  its  organic 
centres.  To  throw  beliefs  overboard,  like  super- 
fluous cargo,  is  only  too  easy.     Any  ship's  boy  can 


134    The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

jettison  the  past  like  that,  or  as  much  of  it  as  he 
can  Hft.  Thousands  of  thin  rebels  against  orthodoxy 
stand  to  prove  how  cheap  that  is,  and  how  sterile. 
Your  pert  witling,  destitute  of  historic  reverence  or 
scientific  competency,  can  entertain  a  whole  company 
by  stripping  belief  to  the  nude,  and  whipping  it 
through  the  town  in  the  wake  of  his  lean  team.  But 
you  cannot  dismember  at  will  systems  whose  parts 
are  neither  packed  together,  nor  nailed  together,  but 
developed  from  a  centre  with  some  concinnity  of 
thought.  And  such  these  orthodoxies  were — both 
the  medieval  scholasticism  and  the  Protestant.  The 
development  may  have  proceeded  under  a  mistaken 
idea,  but  it  was  done  with  great  intellectual  power, 
with  rare  acumen,  and  wonderful  sequence.  And 
it  cannot  be  undone  simply  by  smashing  the  machine 
and  throwing  it  on  the  scrap  heap.  The  idea  of  a 
total  collapse  of  the  old  systems  is  all  very  well  for 
poetic  effect,  humorous  point,  or  popular  purposes. 
Rather,  however,  if  we  speak  mechancially  let  us 
speak  (with  a  friend  of  my  own)  of  reversing  gear. 
But  it  is  still  better  not  to  speak  of  an  organic  system 
which  proceeded  from  a  living  Church  as  a  machine. 
Let  us  treat  it  at  once  more  sympathetically,  and 
more  scientifically.  Let  us  treat  it  as  an  organism 
— as  an  overgrown  organism,  if  you  will,  and  too 
inert,  but  as  being  earnest  in  its  intention  and 
serious  in  its  answer  to  problems  which  are  real.  If 
we  cease  to  feel  these  problems  we  lose  far  more 
than  we  do  by  cherishing  an  inadequate  answer. 
So    long    as   the  problems  are  real  an  inadequate 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    135 

answer  such  as  the  systems  gave  is  better  than 
the  agnosticism  of  none.  It  took  much  grave 
and  able  toil  of  spiritual  men  to  rear  those  fabrics 
we  so  lightly  crush.  They  did  not  do  it  to  amuse 
their  leisure,  or  to  occupy  an  idle  life.  Had  they  been 
less  serious  there  would  have  been  less  temper  about 
it ;  and,  after  all,  the  odium  theologicum  is  better  than 
the  spiritual  insouciance  of  many  who  cultivate  the 
modem  mind  and  a  sentimental  charity  more  than 
they  pursue  reaUty  and  truth.  These  systems  grew  in 
the  hands  of  the  mental  elite  of  their  day.  In  labour 
they  were  bom,  and  they  should  not  die  in  contempt. 
If  they  were  worked  up  they  must  be  worked  down. 
At  least,  they  should  be  worked  at.  They  should 
not  be  the  target  of  the  man  in  the  street,  as  if  they 
were  in  the  pubHc  pillory.  In  their  decay  they  are 
decayed  gentlefolk,  somewhat  heartless,  perhaps, 
like  the  French  aristocrats  of  the  Revolution,  but 
not  ignoble,  and  too  distinguished  for  the  missiles 
of  the  mob.  They  should  not  be  disintegrated  in 
their  hour  of  eclipse  by  tearing  their  seamless  robe 
and  gambhng  their  vesture  away.  If  their  form 
must  be  reduced,  I  repeat,  it  must  be  worked  down. 
It  was  competent  moral  effort  that  put  them  there, 
and  it  must  be  moral  and  competent  effort  that  re- 
moves them.  It  was  the  science  of  the  day  that  reared 
them  ;  and  it  is  competent  science  in  their  own  kind 
that  should  deal  with  them.  They  should  be  tried 
by  their  peers.  They  should  not  be  broken  down  but 
trained  down — if  I  may  use  the  phrase.  If  it  was 
development  as  they  rose,  it  must  be  by  development 


136    The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

that  they  subside.  They  should  be  shed  and  not 
shot.  In  evolution  a  living  thing  sheds  its  superfluous 
parts  ;  it  is  only  disease  that  demands  amputation. 
And  it  is  only  the  raw  procacity  of  the  hour  that 
speaks  of  theological  science  as  a  disease  of  the 
Church.     But  quackery  is  the  worst  heresy. 


The  word  I  should  prefer  to  use  for  the  process 
would  be  distillation.  As  the  revelation  is  distilled 
from  the  Bible  rather  than  dissected,  so  we  should 
treat  the  theologies  of  the  past,  and  so  we  should  reduce 
their  aged  bulk.  The  creed  is  to  be  distilled  from 
the  confessions.  The  treatment  must  be  honestly 
applied,  and  with  insight.  We  must  divine  the 
creed  within  the  creeds.  It  is  not  simply  imbedded 
in  them,  as  if  the  debris  could  be  dug  away  by  any 
youth  with  a  pickaxe,  or  yokel  with  a  spade.  It 
rather  pervades  them  as  an  organic  principle.  We 
must  unsphere  the  spirit  of  Calvin  and  Edwards 
rather  than  disentomb  their  remains.  We  must 
first  know  them,  then  "  appreciate "  them.  A 
modern  theology  must  be  an  appreciation  of  the  old, 
done  lovingly  and  sympathetically,  and  with  scienti- 
fic continuity.  If  we  need  positivity  in  the  present 
we  need  also  to  reach  it  by  the  interpretation  of  the 
past.  And  to  interpret  we  must  know  both  languages 
equally  well.  We  must  interpret  with  an  informed 
sympathy.  The  great  authors  of  these  systems 
loved  and  trusted  God  at  least  as  deeply  as  we  do 
who  never  have  the  word  love  ofi  our  lips — at  least 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    137 

as  deeply,  and,  on  the  whole,  perhaps,  more  deeply. 
They  had  among  them  some  of  the  spiritual  giants 
of  the   race.     They  thought  in  an   atmosphere  of 
Christian  experience.     Their  theology  was  like  the 
wounds  of  Christ,  graven  on   their   heart  and  on 
the  palms  of  their  hands.     To  denounce  and  ridi- 
cule  here  is  sheer  heartlessness.     The    call  is    for 
interpretation.     The  need  of  the  hour  in  respect  of 
past   theologians  (if  we  would  escape  vulgarity)  is 
informed  and   sympathetic   re-interpretation.     We 
must    ask  what  their  profound  and   solemn  minds 
aimed   at,  and  what    they  strove  by  their   system 
to  guarantee  ;    though  we  may  modify  their   way 
of  securing  it. 

§ 

Let  me  take  an  illustration.  You  would  not 
venture  to  preach  at  this  time  of  day  a  sermon  on 
predestination.  You  say  the  idea  is  either  ex- 
ploded or  it  is  left  behind.  Where  it  is  not  entirely 
discarded  it  is  so  out  of  date  as  to  be  too  far  in  the 
rear  of  the  religious  mind  for  your  purpose. 

Well,  but  it  may  be  your  duty  on  occasion  to 
rescue  some  great  beliefs  from  their  oblivion  by  an 
age  which  freely  casts  God,  heaven,  and  hell  into 
the  rear  of  its  concern.  You  are  there  not  simply 
to  speak  what  people  care  to  hear  but  also  to  make 
them  care  for  what  you  must  speak.  And  as  to 
this  matter  of  predestination,  is  there  no  way  of 
preaching  it  so  that  even  to-day  some  will  listen, 
some  will  listen  gladly,  and  some  few  even  with  a 
rising  soul  and  a  swelling  heart  ? 


138    The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

Men  will  still  hear  of  the  soul  if  it  be  a  true  soul 
that  speaks — no  smatterer,  and  no  self-seeker. 
They  will  still  hear  of  the  great  value  of  the  soul. 
They  will  even  hear  of  its  absolute  value,  its  pearl 
of  price  for  whose  sake  all  other  pearls  are  but  a 
currency,  and  all  other  ends  but  means.  Tell  them 
that  this  is  the  Christian,  the  New  Testament  faith. 
Say,  also,  that  in  New  Testament  times,  when  it  was 
desired  to  emphasize  the  absolute  value  of  anything, 
they  spoke  of  its  pre-existence.  The  Jews  with 
their  beliefs  spoke  thus  of  their  Law,  and  of  their 
Temple  even.  If  your  audience  follow  you  so 
far,  one  at  least  will  want  to  interject  that  to  speak 
thus  of  the  absolute  value  of  the  soul  would  lead  to 
speech  about  its  pre-existence.  To  which  you  would 
reply  that  it  did  so  lead.  Even  Plato,  and  many 
since,  took  and  followed  that  lead.  But  that  was 
because,  instead  of  thinking  of  the  soul  as  a  moral 
subject,  they  thought  of  it  as  a  finely  vitalized 
substance,  finished  in  its  kind,  with  an  immortal 
existence  innate  in  itself.  The  Hebrew  idea  was 
different.  The  Jews  thought  of  the  soul  as  im- 
mortal not  in  itself  but  in  a  destiny  conferred  on  it. 
They  thought  of  its  immortality  and  perfection  as 
given  by  God.  Its  destiny  was  there  as  the  result 
of  the  will  and  choice  of  God.  That  destiny  was 
due  to  the  divine  purpose,  and  it  existed  there,  not  in 
the  soul's  fibre,  so  to  say.  It  was  written  not  in  the 
soul's  creation  but  in  its  Creator,  not  in  its  germ  but 
in  its  Maker.i    Accordingly  what  was  said  to  pre- 

*  You   see  how  near   this  comes  to  our   modern   idea 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    139 

exist  was  not  the  soul  in  its  independent  nature, 
as  a  sort  of  fiery  particle  forming  an  exception 
from  the  great  universe  of  inert  existence,  but  the 
will  of  God  for  the  soul,  its  destiny  as  a  purpose  and 
choice  of  God.  And  as  the  purpose  is  that  of  God, 
to  whom  all  things  future  are  present,  therefore  in 
Him  our  destiny  is  an  ever-present  and  ever-hving 
reahty.  Thus  the  soul's  absolute  and  final  value  was 
found  in  Christ,  in  the  pre-existent  Christ,  eternally 
chosen,  God's  personal  purpose,  eternal  and  unbe- 
gotten,  in  whom  we  were  and  are  created. 

You  will  not  of  course  preach  in  exactly  those 
terms,  but  by  such  thoughts  you  may  satisfy  and 
clear  and  stabUsh  your  own  minds,  so  that  you  can 
put  the  matter  freely  in  a  more  popular  way. 
People  will  listen  to  that — often  indeed  too  readily, 
deeming  sometimes  of  the  Humanity  eternal  in  God 
almost  as  if  it  were  an  independent  entity  in  God 
which  God  existed  to  serve  and  magnify ;  so  that 
they  speak  and  think  as  if  God  loved  Christ  for  the 
sake  of  the  humanity  He  embodied  so  perfectly, 
instead  of  loving  humanity  for  the  sake  of  Christ, 
who  redeemed  it  so  perfectly  in  God's  saving  pur- 
pose. 

about  moral  personality  being  the  nature  and  meaning  of 
Soul,  and  about  personality  arriving  as  a  growth  out  of  ex- 
perience and  providence  by  the  moral  discipline  of  our  faith. 
I  have  already  pointed  out  how  sonship  is  not  a  natural 
feature  of  the  Soul  but  is  conferred  on  it,  though  from  its 
beginning,  as  a  destiny,  a  gift  from  God's  hand,  an  adop- 
tion from  before  the  foundation  of  the  world  by  God's  calling 
and  purpose. 


140    The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

I  am  not  going  further  into  that.     I  only  want  to 
point   out   that   the   pre-existence   of  the    soul   in 
Plato  became,   for  a  Christian  thought  based    on 
positive  revelation,  the  pre-existence  of  Christ,  who 
was   the  personal    embodiment    of    God's  personal 
purpose  and  choice  with  persons,  the  Captain  of  the 
elect,  the  eternal  object  of  God's  choice,  and  God's 
own  perfect  and  perpetual  answer  to  His  own  will. 
I  only  want  to  say  that,  if  you  put  it  to  people  in 
the  appropriate  way,  and  not  exactly  as  I  put  it  to 
you  who  are  trained  men,  they  will  listen  with  at 
least  an  imaginative  interest.     For   these    realities 
are    great   poetry,   and    when   well    handled    they 
satisfy  and  pacify.     And   people  who  rise  above  a 
material,  selfish,  impatient  and  over-practical  Chris- 
tianity will    hsten  to    preaching   about   the   soul's 
destiny,  about  its  being  so  absolute  and   precious 
that   it    was    predestiny,    bound    up    with    God's 
timeless    thought,   will,   and    purpose — a    purpose 
pre-intelligent    and    pre-active    and    pre-redeeming 
(Rom.  viii.  28  ff.) — a  purpose  in  which  God  fore- 
knew what  He  was  about,  fore-ordained  the  soul, 
the  race,  unto   salvation,  and  fore-saved  and  justi- 
fied it  before  our  day,  and  indeed  before  the  day  of 
Time.     People  can  be  made  to  rise  above  the  vulgar 
contempt  for  such  interests.     They  can  be  made  to 
respond  to  efforts  of  this  kind  to  translate  a  material 
and  temporal  valuation  of  life  into  a  spiritual  and 
eternal,   to   deliver   them   from   polemical   dogmas 
about  the  number  and  specification  of  the    elect 
to  the  presence  and  sober  joy  of  thoughts  beyond 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    141 

time  concerning  the  fundamental  gift  and  absolute 
reality  of  a  redeeming  salvation.  It  is  in  our  forgive- 
ness that  we  find  our  soul  and  its  destiny.  Faith  in  an 
eternally  slain  Christ  is  the  foundation  for  the  Church 
of  all  certainty  of  salvation,  all  divine  destiny  for  the 
soul.  From  the  beginning,  from  the  heart  of  God, 
from  Christ,  we  were  destined  for  God's  will  and  re- 
demption. We  were  forever  in  His  purpose  in  Christ 
our  Saviour.  We  were  from  the  first  where  Christ, 
by  God's  eternal  will,  ever  is.  And  so  we  arrive  at 
the  great  world-conquering  and  world-reconciling 
conviction  which  lifts  the  soul  to  a  heavenly  rock 
above  the  flux  and  storm  of  Time.  It  is  the  con- 
viction that  Christ  in  us  is  the  hope  of  glory,  that 
any  hope  we  have  of  a  glorious  and  transcendent 
future  rests  upon  the  finished  reality  of  a  glorious 
and  transcendent  past,  not  only  in  Calvary  but  in 
the  very  bosom  and  wiU  of  a  Holy  Father  Almighty 
to  save  and  Eternal  to  seal. 


If  we  catch  no  echo  in  these  considerations  of 
mighty  happenings  beyond  the  light  of  common 
day,  if  we  hear  no  hint  or  music  of  them  from  behind 
the  veil,  if,  while  we  prepare  (as  you  are  here  doing) 
to  play  our  part  upon  this  stage  of  time,  we  hear 
nothing  of  the  murmur  of  that  eternal  cloud  of  wit- 
nesses expectant  on  the  other  side  of  the  curtain,  and 
if  we  do  not  rise  to  their  interests  or  their  thoughts, 
then  we  cannot  quit  ourselves  well  (as  they  would 
count  well)  when  the  time  comes.     And  if  people 


142     The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

will  not  hear  of  such  things,  because  they  are  stale 
lumber  well  banished  to  the  attics  of  the  Church 
when  it  was  refurnished  in  modem  taste,  then  their 
revolt  is  not  from  orthodoxy,  dogma,  or  polemic  but 
from  the  serious,  the  Christian,  the  spiritual,  the 
eternal  world  of  life  and  reality. 

It  is  easy  for  any  soft  humanist  or  hard  witling  to 
hold  up  to  horror  or  ridicule  our  fathers'  doctrine 
of  predestination,  or  reprobation.  It  is  easy  because 
we  believe  in  man  (if  we  do)  where  they  beUeved  in 
God.  We  are  supremely  concerned  about  human 
happiness  where  they  were  engrossed  with  the  glory 
of  God.  We  are  preoccupied  with  human  freedom, 
and  are  not  interested  (as  they  were  above  all)  in 
the  freedom  of  God.  We  are  greatly  interested  in 
freedom  of  thought,  and  little  in  the  freedom  of 
grace  ;  much  troubled  about  freedom  of  thought  or 
action,  and  little  about  freedom  of  soul.  But  we  are 
not  just  to  those  great  spirits  till  we  have  the  same 
prime  concern,  the  same  perspective  of  interest,  the 
same  sense  of  final  values.  We  are  not  just  to  them 
till  we  realize  that  what  moved  everything  in  them 
was  concern  for  that  glory  and  freedom  of  God  which 
is  the  supreme  object  of  existence,  and  which  pre- 
scribes the  final  interests  of  humanity.  Nothing  can 
make  man  free  which  does  not  secure  in  advance 
the  freedom  of  God.  The  old  theologians  saw  that 
as  I  wish  we  could  see  it.  And  that  was  what  led 
them  to  positions  which  can  seem  absurd  and  in- 
human only  to  people  who  care  but  for  the  glorious 
freedom  of  man,  and  who  use  a  God  but  as  its  minis- 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    143 

ter.  It  is  easy  for  any  litterateur  to  sweep  Calvin 
out  of  doors  of  a  morning,  and  take  in  a  suite  of 
theological  furniture  in  completely  modern  style.^ 
But  it  is  not  easy,  it  is  a  great  moral  effort,  to 
think  our  way  out  of  Calvinism  into  truth  more 
modest  and  no  less  mighty.  It  is  not  easy,  it  is 
laborious  moral  effort,  as  well  as  mental  energy, 
which  enables  us  to  keep  in  the  front  of  our  interest 
that  issue  of  God's  freedom,  and  yet  to  secure  it  by 
other  doctrines  than  those  which  have  now  become 
untenable.  They  have  become  so  partly  by  the 
growth  of  the  humane  idea,  but  still  more  by  the 
growth  upon  us  of  the  revelation  latent  in  a  historic 
Christ  and  His  Gospel. 


I  should  like  to  point  out  farther  that  the  labour 
of  this  reduction  cannot  be  avoided  by  attempts, 
like  Tolstoi's  or  other  naive  spirits,  at  what  we  may 
call  mere  repristination — a  violent  return  to  revive 
Christianity  in  its  earliest  and  most  primitive  form. 
We  cannot  do  with  our  Christian  ideas  and  institu- 
tions what  we  can  do  with  our  personal  faith.  We 
cannot  go  back  to  the  fountain  head  and  simply  ignore 
the  2,000  years  of  Christian  evolution.  We  cannot 
do  that  now  in  the  matter  of  polity.  We  cannot  re- 
store  the  exact  conditions  of  the  New  Testament 

^  I  was  amused,  while  delivering  these  lectures,  to  see 
over  an  American  shop  the  sign  of  the  '  Hegel  Furniture 
Company,' 


144-    The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

Church.  Nor  can  we  in  the  matter  of  creed,  of 
mental  construction  either  of  man  or  the  world.  It 
seems  easy  to  the  uninstructed  person  who  has  the 
Bible  put  into  his  hand  to  say,  '  Why  not  return,  in 
mode  of  life  and  form  of  thought,  to  what  is  so 
normative  there.'  He  omits  to  note  that  the  norma- 
tive in  the  New  Testament  is  not  a  pattern.  It  is 
there  in  a  historic  context,  not  on  a  desert  island. 
We  cannot  even  go  back  the  shorter  journey  to  the 
Reformation  in  this  sense.  It  would  be  destructive 
to  man's  spiritual  life,  even  if  it  were  psychologically 
possible,  which  it  is  not.  Nor  is  it  historically  possi- 
ble. We  have  not  sufficient  data  about  that  very 
early  state  of  affairs.  Those  who  suggest  such  a 
thing  are  devoid  of  the  historical  sense.  They 
have  no  idea  of  the  dimensions  of  the  problem — 
which  is  a  sure  sign  of  incompetency.  And  it  is 
therefore  as  difficult  to  convince  them  of  the  impossi- 
bility as  it  would  be  to  perform  the  feat.  To  couple 
up  directly  with  the  Church  order  of  the  first  century, 
with  its  literal  precepts,  with  its  mental  concepts, 
would  be  in  truth  to  break  with  the  past  in  its  more 
inward  reality.  We  may  re-interpret  and  re-organ- 
ize, but  we  cannot  restore  it.  We  know  what  the 
result  of  Church  restoration  is  in  art,  in  architecture. 
And  it  is  no  less  unhappy  and  impossible  in  the  inner 
fabric  of  our  faith.  It  is  impossible  for  Churches  to 
turn  this  mental  somersault,  even  if  individuals 
tried  it,  or  sects  arose  upon  the  effort.  All  such 
attempts  have  been  failures,  and,  more  or  less, 
waste.    The  future  must  grow  out  of  all  the  past. 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    145 

Neither  Church  history  nor  Church  piety  is  a  continu- 
ous fall  from  the  first  century,  where  each  age  feels 
itself  at  the  bottom,  and  must  start  scrambling  up. 
Rather  the  whole  of  history  converges  and  ascend 
through  the  present.     And  we  must  interpret  th 
originality  and  normality  of   Christ  and   the    No- 
Testament  consistently  with  that.     We  have  to  solv 
our  own  problems  as  the  whole  past  presents  them. 
We  have  to  draw  from  an  eternity  which  is  brought  to 
our  door  by  the  whole  course  of  history  up  to  now. 
We  have  to  ignore  the  growing  bulk  of  the  question, 
to  fix  on  its  spiritual  core.     We  have  to  interrogate 
eternity  through  the  unity  of  history,  past  and  pre- 
sent.    We  must  practise  divination,  and  especially 
at   the    point  where  that    unity  is  condensed  and 
narrowed  in  the  Cross  of  Christ. 

Well,  if  such  be  the  spirit  and  method  of  our 
theological  reduction,  are  we  not  entitled  to  call  on 
the  public  (for  whom  we  are  really  acting)  to  meet  us 
in  the  hke  earnest  spirit.  The  work  done  by  theolo- 
gians is  not  done  for  a  small  group  of  people  with  an 
interest  in  that  hobby.  It  is  not  sectional  work  at 
aU.  It  is  first  done  for  the  preachers  and  their 
preaching,  and  through  them  for  the  public,  on  the 
question  of  most  universal  moment.  And  we  are 
entitled,  especially  we  preachers  who  stand  between 
the  theologians  and  the  public  (as  the  theologians 
stand  between  the  critics  and  the  preachers),  to  expect 
from  it  some  effort  to  correspond.  We  may  ask  it 
to  make  moral  effort,  and  to  treat  more  seriously 
that    more    portable  and   potent  creed  which    we 


146    The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

distill  from  the  creeds  rather  than  pick  from  the 
poets,  or  from  the  poetry  even  of  Scriptmre.  A 
generous  theology  should  not  be  associated  with 
mere  mobility  of  sympathy  and  shortness  of  spiritual 
fibre.  Let  our  public  put  aside  the  habit  of  dis- 
cursive attention  and  sustained  distraction  which 
marks  the  restless,  casual  age.  Let  it  dehberately 
caU  in  its  vagrant  thoughts,  and  give  itself  and  its 
mind  to  those  prime  matters  of  the  soul.  If  they 
deserve  any  attention  they  deserve  our  best.  Let  it 
give  to  this  high  business  of  eternity  at  least  some  of 
the  same  effort  as  it  gives  to  the  grave  business  of 
time.  Let  it  give  to  life  some  of  the  intense  and 
capable  energy  it  gives  to  living.  Let  its  religion 
cease  to  be  merely  a  refuge  and  a  balm  for  men  so 
jaded  with  the  pursuit  of  the  world  as  to  be  fit  on 
Sundays  for  no  more  than  a  warm  bath  or  a  sacred 
concert. 

Moreover,  let  the  religious  public  at  least  have 
some  consideration  for  its  ministry,  which  it  irritates 
and  debases  by  trivial  ethics,  and  the  impatient  de- 
mand for  short  sermons  and  long  "  socials."  Let  it 
respect  the  dignity  of  the  ministry.  Let  it  cease  to 
degrade  the  ministry  into  a  competitor  for  public 
notice,  a  caterer  for  public  comfort,  and  a  mere  waiter 
upon  social  convenience  or  rehgious  decency.  Let  it 
make  greater  demands  on  the  pulpit  for  power,  and 
grasp,  and  range,  and  penetration,  and  reality.  Let 
it  encourage  the  ministry  to  do  more  justice  to  the 
mighty  matter  of  the  Bible  and  its  burthen,  and 
not  only  to  its  beauty,  its  charm,  its  sentiment,  or 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    147 

its  precepts.  Let  it  come  in  aid  to  protect  the  pulpit 
from  that  curse  of  petty  sentiment  which  grows 
upon  the  Church,  which  rolls  up  from  the  pew  into 
the  pulpit,  and  from  the  pulpit  rolls  down  upon 
the  pew  in  a  warm  and  soaking  mist.  There  is 
an  element  in  the  preacher's  eloquence  which  only 
the  audience  can  give.  Let  it  do  so  by  being,  not 
less  exalting  but  more — only,  exacting  on  the 
great  right  things.  Let  it  realize  that  for  true  elo- 
quence there  must  be  great  matter,  both  in  him 
who  speaks  and  in  those  who  hear.  The  greatest 
eloquence  is  not  that  of  the  man  but  of  the  theme. 
There  is  no  such  supporter  of  a  minister  as  the  man 
who,  he  knows,  studies  the  Bible  with  as  much  earnest- 
ness as  himself,  if  with  fewer  facilities.  Such  sup- 
porters add  immeasurably  to  the  staying  power 
of  a  Church,  If  our  people  are  experts  of  the 
Bible  we  shall  have  none  of  the  rude  remarks  of 
philanthropy  about  the  time  the  minister  wastes  on 
theology.  I  say  that,  in  the  present  state  of  the 
Church,  and  certainly  for  the  sake  of  its  pulpit,  its 
ministers,  and  its  future,  theology  is  a  greater  need 
than  philanthropy.  Because  men  do  not  know  where 
they  are.  They  are  only  steering  by  dead  reckoning 
— when  anything  may  happen.  But  theology  is 
"  taking  the  sun."  And  it  is  wonderful — it  is  danger- 
ous— how  few  of  our  officers  can  use  the  sextant  for 
themselves.  Yet  what  is  the  use  of  captains  who 
are  more  at  home  entertaining  the  passengers  than 
navigating  the  ship.  The  theology  of  the  Bible 
is  but  the  moral  adequacy  and  virility  of  the  word 


148    The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

of  the  Cross,  and  the  thews  of  a  powerful  Gospel. 
A  theology  chiefly  curious,  or  speculative,  a  second- 
ary theology,  may  be  left  to  the  leisure  of  the  schools ; 
but  a  theology  of  experienced  Grace,  primary  theo- 
logy, is  of  the  essence  of  the  Gospel.  And  it  is  not 
merely  of  the  bene  esse,  it  is  of  the  esse  of  the  Church. 
The  Church,  then,  may  adjust  itself  to  the  world 
in  reducing  its  demand  to  those  experimental  but 
rational  limits  which  the  New  Testament  prescribes. 
But  within  those  limits  it  must  descend  on  the  world 
from  the  side  of  God  and  the  glory  of  his  throne, 
whether  it  come,  like  the  Spirit,  as  a  rushing  mighty 
wind,  or,  like  the  New  Jerusalem,  sailing  down 
beautiful  as  a  bride.  In  the  last  matters  of  the 
soul  it  is  the  Church  that  gives  the  law  to  the 
world  ;  it  is  not  the  world  that  gives  the  law  to  the 
Church.  But  it  is  the  Church  as  prophet,  not  as  King. 
It  is  not  the  imperial  Church  but  the  serving  Church, 
the  Church  not  as  judge  but  as  witness.  It  is  the 
Church  not  as  an  organization,  far  less  as  a  monarchy, 
but  as  the  company  of  the  faithful,  the  communion 
of  saints  and  the  fellow  heirs  of  the  Gospel ;  the 
Church  as  the  trustee  of  the  Word  of  saving  Grace, 
not  as  the  nuncio  of  an  imperious  prerogative  ;  as 
the  meek,  mighty  apostle  of  the  Redeemer,  not  as 
the  gorgeous  vicar  of  Christ. 


Meantime  let  us  welcome  and  use  any  signs  that 
the  age  presents  of  the  frame  of  mind  we  desire  to 
see,    Let  us  be  quick  to  read  and  interpret  not  only 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    149 

its  unrest,  not  even  its  compunction,  but  its  deep, 
though  hidden,  sense  of  guilt,  and  its  keen,  though 
stifled,  sense  of  despair.  Let  us  recognize  that 
men  are  brooding  on  their  moral  condition  much 
more  than  they  own.  Let  us  realize  how  they 
are  being  forced,  by  mightier  influences  than  ours, 
upon  the  moral  problems  that  set  up  the  real  crisis 
of  the  soul.  Let  us  not  be  the  victims  of  the  con- 
ventional phases  of  sin,  penitence,  and  prayer;  of 
those  forms  of  them  which  religious  speakers  work 
to  death  and  rob  of  solemn  meaning.  Let  us  learn 
to  discover  the  thing  itself  where  the  traditional 
expressions  of  it  do  not  appear,  and  the  ecclesiastical 
symptoms  are  wanting.  If  we  get  deep  enough 
with  the  public  mind — at  any  rate  in  the  Old  World 
— we  shall  find  that  men  are  less  satisfied  with 
success  than  would  appear  from  the  plaudits  of 
the  day,  less  the  victims  of  things  as  they  are  than 
the  press  would  indicate,  and  more  preoccupied  with 
their  inward  moral  failure  than  their  bravado  will 
admit. 

It  is  true,  when  the  conscience  begins  to  act  we 
often  find  no  more  than  a  vague  sense  of  imperfection 
before  the  Christian  standard,  or  a  dim  disquiet.  But 
that  is  not  all.  We  find  also  an  inner  schism  and  a  real 
sense  of  retribution,  however  vague,  when  conscience 
does  bite.  The  curse  comes  home.  But  it  is  not  the 
fear  of  hell,  scarcely  of  God.  It  is  the  fear  of  judg- 
ment, indeed,  but  the  judgment  of  exposure  to 
man,  not  of  inquisition  by  God.  It  is  the  judgment 
of  being  found  out,  whether  by  self  or  society.    And 


150    The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

the  torment  of  being  found  out  by  yourself,  and 
carrying  about  in  yourself  a  living  fraud,  a  moral 
corpse,  can  become  to  some  as  great  as  the  exposure 
to  the  world.  What  comes  home  is  the  nemesis 
of  guilt  in  the  course  of  life,  not  in  the  judgment 
outside  life.  It  comes  home  either  in  visible  tragedy 
or  in  inward  desiccation  and  calm  despair.  The 
sense  of  guilt  is  still  there,  it  is  often  more  active 
than  we  are  allowed  to  know.  And  it  cannot  be 
escaped.  It  is  very  actual.  Read  Ibsen,  for  in- 
stance. You  will  find  the  dramatists  much  more 
to  your  purpose  than  most  of  the  novelists.  They 
get  closer  to  life's  moral  realities.  Read  him  again. 
Mark  and  learn  his  unsparing  ethical  reaHsm. 
Could  that  remorseless  insight  of  his  through  the 
shams  and  clothes  of  ordinary  society  miss  the 
grim  dull  ache  of  guilt  ?  For  him,  as  for  all  the  rest 
of  the  tragic  poets,  guilt  is  the  centre  of  the  tragedy. 
"  Guilt  remains  guilt,"  he  says.  "  You  cannot  bully 
God  into  any  such  blessing  as  turns  guilt  to  merit,  or 
penalty  to  reward."  No,  God  can  be  neither  bullied 
nor  blandished  into  that.  Yet  the  blessing  is  there. 
The  one  thing  needful  is  there — not  the  merit  but 
the  mercy.  The  forgiveness  is  there,  and  therefrom 
God,  there  of  His  own  free  gift,  at  His  proper  cost. 
And  to  realize  how  awful  that  cost  is  use  such  as  Ibsen. 
To  save  your  soul  from  sunny  or  silly  piety,  to 
realize  the  deadly  inveteracy  of  evil,  its  dereliction  by 
God,  its  sordid  paralysis  of  all  redeeming,  self- 
recuperative  power  in  man,  its  incurable  fatal  effect 
upon  the  moral  order  of  society,  read  Ibsen.     Yea, 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    151 

to  realize  how  it  thereby  imports  the  element  of 
death  even  into  the  moral  order  of  the  imiverse 
read  Ibsen.  It  inflicts  death  on  whatever  power 
you  call  God.  Unless,  indeed,  that  power  have  the 
secret  (unknown  to  this  great  prophet)  of  transform- 
ing the  death  which  it  cannot  evade.  Within  the 
moral  order  there  may  reside,  (Christ  says  there  does 
reside,)  a  moral  power  to  make  itself  effective,  not 
only  in  spite  of  the  wound  to  it,  but  by  means  of 
that  wound.  A  holy  God  has  power  to  make  good 
the  moral  law  by  a  personal  resource  which  both 
honoured  its  affronted  but  infrangible  majesty, 
and  surmounted  it  in  saving  love.  Such  searching, 
fundamental  things  a  man  like  Ibsen  enables  us  to 
realize,  and  compels  us  to  face.  Our  thought  of 
evil  is  too  shallow  till  these  keen,  hard  plough- 
shares tear  to  the  depths.  Our  attention  is  too 
slight  and  volatile,  our  hearts  too  happy,  light,  and 
credulous.  These  pessimists  are  a  gift  of  God  to 
us.  Their  bitter  is  a  tonic  to  our  time.  They  are 
the  protest  of  a  self-respecting  conscience  against  an 
idyllic,  juvenile,  sanguine,  and  domestic  tyranny 
of  life.  It  is  the  great  dramatists  that  are  the  great 
questioners,  the  great  challengers,  the  great  and 
serviceable  accusers  of  current,  easy,  and  fungous 
sainthood.  It  is  not  the  learned  critics  that  present 
the  great  challenge  which  draws  out  the  last  resources 
of  a  Gospel.  They  are  too  intellectualist.  It  is  the 
great  moral  critics  like  Ibsen,  Carlyle,  and  their  kind. 
They  lay  bare  not  our  errors  but  our  shams.  It  is 
true  they  have  no  answer  to  the  question  they  raise. 


152    The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

no  covering  for  the  shame  they  expose.  Ibsen 
does  not  beheve  that  God  can  be  bullied — that  He 
can  be  mocked,  as  the  Bible  puts  it.  I  wish  more 
of  us  shared  his  belief  there.  But  he  also  does  not 
believe  in  a  God  that  cannot  be  foiled,  in  a  holiness 
that  must  establish  itself  upon  everything,  in  a  God 
of  grace,  in  grace  with  all  the  creative  power  of 
God  turned  to  redeem,  in  God  as  Lord  of  the  moral 
order  also,  and  able  to  deal  with  it  and  its  mockery. 
A  creed  that  can  cope  with  such  sceptics  is  the  final 
creed  of  the  world.  Why  does  Ibsen  not  so  believe  ? 
Because,  while  he  reads  one  book  with  uncanny 
penetration,  the  book  of  Man,  Church,  and  Society, 
he  has  never  turned  the  same  piercing  eye  on  the 
other  book,  the  New  Testament,  and  never  taken 
Christ  as  seriously  as  he  takes  man.  He  is  grimly, 
ghastly  interpretive  but  not  redemptive — like 
his  analytic  age.  It  is  the  fault,  the  bane,  of  almost 
all  the  great  critics  and  accusers.  But  consent  still 
to  learn  from  them  what  they  have  to  teach  you — 
you  who  are  already  taught  by  Christ,  and  sure  of 
your  Gospel — perhaps  too  slightly  sure,  and  too 
lightly  persuaded  you  are,  or  are  making.  Christians. 
Preach  to  Ibsen's  world,  and  there  are  few  that  you 
will  miss.  Only  do  not  preach  his  word.  Christ's 
Gospel  has  the  same  radical,  unsparing,  moral  realism, 
tearing  to  the  roots,  and  tearing  them  up  with 
relentless  moral  veracity.  It  has  the  note  of  thorough. 
You  find  it  chiefly  in  the  exactions,  the  irony,  and  the 
wrath  of  Christ's  love.  And  next  to  them  in  the 
Apostle  of  love,  in  the  Epistles  of  John.     "  If  any 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    153 

man  love  God  and  hate  his  brother  he  is  a  har." 
Learn,  then,  to  shun  every  hymn  that  has  the  word 
'sweet'  in  it,  to  find  other  sources  of  "greatness" 
than  the  "  gentleness "  of  God,  and  to  look  for 
something  else  than  lightness  in  the  burden  of 
Christ.  Let  your  song  be  of  mercy,  but  the  mercy 
of  judgment.  And  learn  not  to  say  so  much 
to  your  people  of  a  day  of  Judgment  sure  though 
far.  The  farness  destroys  the  sureness.  Ethicize 
the  reality  of  judgment.  Moralize  the  eschato- 
logy.  Couple  it  up  to  the  hour.  Drop,  if  need 
be,  the  drapery  of  the  remote  assize.  The 
judge  is  at  the  door.  Everything  comes  home. 
It  comes  home  in  calamity  if  you  do  not  take  it 
home  in  repentance.  Everything  comes  home. 
Life  needs  far  more  for  most  people,  for  all  people 
when  you  get  as  deep  as  that,  far  more  than  filling 
out.  It  needs  more  than  the  deep  breathing  of  tonic 
oxygen.  It  needs  remaking.  It  needs  divine, 
decisive  action,  forgiveness,  atonement,  the  cancelling 
of  guilt,  salvation  in  that  sense,  rescue  from  the 
moral  nemesis,  the  breaking  of  the  guilty  entail. 
It  needs  more  even  than  redemption,  if  by  redemp- 
tion you  mean  but  Buddhist  rescue  from  the  tragic 
ills  and  clogs  of  life.  It  needs,  before  all  redemption, 
reconciliation,  the  reopening  of  communication,  the 
dissipation  of  guilt's  cloud  which  darkens  for  us 
the  ace  of  God.  It  is  unfortunate  that  so  many 
who  preach  reconciliation  lose  sight  of  redemption, 
while  the  preachers  of  redemption  are  apt  to  lose 
the  note  of  reconciliation. 


154    The  Preacher  and  the  Age 


§ 

Beware,  of  course,  of  censor iousness,  which  is  a 
frequent  trap  for  the  young  morahst.  But  do  preach 
a  gospel  where  salvation  is  in  real  rapport  with  deep 
guilt,  and  redemption  with  holy  judgment.  For 
God's  sake  do  not  tell  poor  prodigals  and  black 
scoundrels  they  are  better  than  they  think,  that 
they  have  more  of  Christ  in  them  than  they  know, 
and  so  on.  The  conscience  which  is  really  in  hell 
is  the  first  to  be  angered  at  ingenuities  and  futilities 
like  these,  the  more  exasperating  because  of  the 
poetic  quarter-truth  they  contain. 

This  is  where  we  suffer  from  the  word  of  a  pseudo- 
liberalism  and  humanism.  It  seeks  to  be  modern 
by  the  way  of  extenuation  rather  than  realism, 
by  palliation  rather  than  penetration,  by  moral 
tenderness  rather  than  by  moral  probing,  by  poetry 
rather  than  prophesying,  by  nursing  where  surgery 
is  required.  So  much  of  our  modem  liberalism,  even 
when  ethical,  is  more  kindly  in  tone  than  positive 
in  power.  And,  therefore,  it  fails  to  grasp  much 
beyond  the  milder  sins  and  the  milder  sex.  It  is 
shy  of  the  only  thing  relevant — a  divine  atone- 
ment, or  it  empties  it  of  virile  force  and  mordant 
meaning.  Those  who  so  speak  seem  never  them- 
selves to  have  resisted  unto  blood  striving  against 
sin,  nor  to  have  been  snatched  from  self-contempt 
and  despair.  But  I  venture  to  think  John  Newton's 
"  I  asked  the  Lord  that  I  might  grow  "  one  of  the 
greatest  and  most  realistic  utterances  of  Christian 


The  Preacher  and  the  Age    155 

experience.    And  it  represents  the  course  our  sunny 
liberalism   must    take   as   it   passes   from   a   trout 
stream  of  the  morning  to  the  river  of  God  which 
is  full  of  deep  water.  Our  young  lions  suffer  hunger. 
Do  you  realize  that  it  was  the  severity  of  Christ 
that  made  the  agony  of  Christ,  His  love  of  God's 
holy  law  more  even  than  of  His  brother  men  ?     Do 
you  realize  how,  first  to  last,  He  stood  on  God's 
side  against  men  ?     There  was  in  existence  in  the 
Judaism  of  Christ's  day  a  mild,  humane,  and  attrac- 
tive   school   of    the    law,   in  contrast  with  those 
teachers  who  pressed  it  into  unsparing  detail.     And 
has  it  occurred  to  you  to  ask  why  Christ  did  not  ally 
Himself  with  that  kind  and  genial  school,  and  work 
from  its  midst  ?      Nay,  how  was  it  that  He  stood 
as  opposed  to  it  as  He  did  to  the  other  extreme  ? 
Because    His    freedom  in  relation  to  the   law   lay 
not   in  getting  rid   of  it,   not   in   easing    it.     He 
preached    no    mere    emancipation.      He   was    not 
antinomian.     What  He  brought  was  not  a  general 
dispensation.     The  imperative  note  was  always  in 
the  front  of  His  preaching.     He  always  recognized  the 
law  as  the  will  of  God.    His  complaint  was  that  both 
extremes  tampered  with  it ;   not  that  the  Pharisees 
were  legalist,  but  that  they  were  inconsistent  with 
their  own  legal  version  of  it.     "  What  they  bid  you 
do  do,  but  do  not  as  they  do."     In  his  own  relation 
to  the  law  He  was  not  so  much  under  it,  or  against 
it,  as  above  it.     He  handled  it  as  God  would.     His 
obedience  to  the  law  was  not  free  like  the  Sadducees 
by  reducing  its  claim,  nor  slavish  like  the  Pharisees 


156    The  Preacher  and  the  Age 

by  not  rising  above  its  claim.  It  was  the  obedience  of 
the  Son  in  His  Father's  house.  He  pressed  the  law's 
validity  by  expanding  its  scope.  His  modifications 
were  to  increase  its  obligations .  Love  was  more  search- 
ing, and  therefore  more  imperative,  than  precept. 
Law  for  him  (as  for  Paul)  was  always  exigent,  never 
outworn.  The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man.  The 
greater  man  grows  the  more  imperative  is  a  Sabbath, 
the  more  serious  the  penalty  of  its  neglect.  Traffic 
in  the  Temple  was  what  roused  Him,  not  its  priests 
nor  its  ritual.  Commercialist  piety  was  far  more 
unholy  than  sacerdotal.  As  Christ's  love  to  God 
was  greater  than  His  love  to  man,  so  His  love  for 
God's  law  was  more  intense  than  His  sympathy  with 
man's  weakness.  True  His  love  to  men  was  part 
of  God's  love  to  men.  But  that  shows  that  a  divine 
love  of  man  is  only  possible  if  divine  holiness  is 
loved  as  God  loves  it.  Always  the  obedience  to  holy 
God  was  precedent  with  Christ  to  the  service  of  needy 
men.  He  served  men  chiefly  out  of  obedience  to 
God  ;  and  His  love  to  them  was  because  of  His  love 
to  God.  His  teeming  pity  flowed  from  His  love, 
and  His  love  was  fixed  upon  the  Holy  One.  The 
hallowing  of  God's  name  always  came  first.  And 
for  Christ  the  law  was  no  piece  of  Judaism  to 
be  overthrown  with  Pharisaism,  but  it  was  the 
expression  of  God's  holy  will  to  be  honoured  in  His 
Son.  The  original  thing  in  Jesus  was  His  peculiar  way 
of  honouring  the  law,  and  not  His  discarding  of  it. 
The  claim  of  God's  holy  will  was  never  ended  till 
it  was  met.     He  was  not,  as  I  have  said,  among  the 


The  Preacher  and  tlie  Age    157 

liberals  of  the  Jewish  Church.  He  pressed  the 
claim  of  holy  law,  only  in  a  new  construction.  He 
was  neither  orthodox  nor  liberal.  It  is  even  bad 
taste  to  apply  to  Him  such  terms.  He  had  the 
word  of  living  grace  and  searching  power.  That 
note  is  what  we  call  positive  to-day.  And,  there- 
fore, He  was  adjudged  by  both  dull  parties  to 
be  unintelligible  or  a  traitor.  And  it  was  only 
when  Christ  had  honoured  in  full  the  holiness  of 
God's  claim  upon  the  Cross  that  Paul  could  take 
the  attitude  to  the  law  he  did,  and  speak  of  Him  as 
its  end. 

The  guilt,  the  Pharisaism,  that  saturates  the 
Europe  or  America  spread  out  before  men  like 
Ibsen,  can  never  be  dealt  with  by  pressing  a  social 
ethic,  or  a  moral  order,  or  an  enfolding  sympathy  for 
man,  while  pooh-poohing  the  holy  demand  of  God. 
It  can  only  be  dealt  with  by  a  conception  of  God's 
action  in  Christ,  which  shall  do  more  justice  to  God's 
inexorable  holiness  than  the  Judaisms  of  ortho- 
doxy, or  the  genialities  of  humanism.  It  can  only 
be  dealt  with  by  making  room  for  the  judgment 
grace  of  God  in  Christ's  cross — applying  it  as  judi- 
ciously as  you  will,  and  remembering  always  the 
strength  of  reserve  and  the  reverence  of  the  holy 
name  hallowed  in  silent  action  there. 

But  to  this  subject  I  shall  be  compelled  to  return 
by  the  pressure  of  that  idea  which  underlies,  sub- 
dues, and  goes  on  to  absorb  all  I  say  in  this  series 
of  discourse. 


THE  PREACHER  AND   RELIGIOUS 
REALITY 


The  Preacher  and  ReHgious  Reality 

There  are  two  ways  of  treating  the  Reformation — • 
one  is  to  complete  it,  and  one  is  to  escape  from  it. 

And  there  are  two  ways  of  escaping  from  it. 
One  is  the  way  of  deploring  it  with  shame  as 
the  grand  defection  of  modern  history,  re- 
nouncing it  as  the  grand  schism,  and  returning 
to  the  medievalism  it  abjured.  That  is  the 
Catholic  way.  And  the  other  is  the  way  of 
deploring  and  renouncing  it  with  regret  as  a 
lapse  into  theology  and  violence,  when  all  that 
was  needed  might  have  been  done  by  culture  and 
reform.  That  is  the  way  of  Erasmus,  and  Goethe, 
the  way  of  the  Illumination.  Goethe  expresses 
the  mind  of  many  refined  Protestants  when  he 
says  that  Luther's  Reformation  threw  back  the 
progress  of  culture  by  centuries. 

I  would  express  the  conviction,  against  both  of 
these  ways,  that  the  proper  treatment  of  the  Refor- 
mation is  to  finish  it — to  reform  and  complete  it. 
And,  still  further,  it  is  not  to  correct  it  by  an 
extraneous  principle  like  culture,  but  to  reform  it 
by  its   own   intrinsic   principle   of  faith.     We   are 

p.p.  161  JJ 


1 62  The  Preacher  and 

but  half  way  through  the  Reformation.  So  mighty 
was  that  conversion  of  Christianity,  that  second 
birth  of  the  Gospel.  Remember,  it  was  in  its  nature 
the  Church's  reforming  of  itself.  So  it  goes  on  still 
as  the  self-reformation  of  the  reformed  Church. 
It  was  evolved  from  the  Church,  it  was  not  thrust 
on  it.  It  was  the  reward  to  the  Church  for  the 
evangelical  fidelity  that  had  long  been  struggling 
in  it.  It  began  at  the  Church's  self-reformation 
by  the  Spirit.  That  is  its  genius.  Therefore,  it 
goes  on  so.  That  is  to  say,  the  modernizing  of  our 
theology,  as  of  our  evangelical  methods,  is  some- 
thing demanded  by  the  reformed  faith  itself.  A 
new  theology  is  to  express  the  growth  of  faith  and 
give  room  for  more. 

I  have  mentioned  and  applied  several  of  the 
modem  ideas  to  which  we  have  to  adjust  our 
message — the  idea  of  authority,  the  idea  of  morality, 
the  idea  of  immanence.  There  is  another  modern 
passion  which  we  must  go  out  to  satisfy,  one  inherent 
in  faith  itself — the  passion  for  reality — and 
especially  moral  reality.  By  which  I  need  hardly 
say  I  mean  much  more  than  ordinary  sincerity. 

The  history  of  the  passion  for  reahty  would  be  the 
history  of  the  whole  modem  mind  since  medievalism 
was  outgrown.  And  that  indeed  is  not  so  very  long 
ago.  The  medieval  period  did  not  really  expire  till, 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  the  Illumination  killed 
its  legatee  in  scholastic  Protestantism.  But  the 
history  of  the  movement  on  its  moral  side  began 
with  the  Reformation.     That  was  a  vast  assertion 


Religious  Reality  163 

of  ethical  realism.  It  pursued  the  actual  moral 
condition  of  the  soul  into  the  recesses  of  the  con- 
science, and  dealt  unsparingly,  effectually,  with  it 
there  in  the  shape  of  sin.  It  is  true  that  almost 
immediately  that  mighty  wave  began  to  ebb — ^just 
as  Judaism  surged  swiftly  back  on  Pauline  Christi- 
anity, and  submerged  it  in  Catholicism  till  the 
Reformation.  The  great  moral  vis  of  the  Reforma- 
tion subsided  into  the  renewed  inteUectualism  of 
the  seventeenth  century  dogmatists,  so  able,  so 
acute,  so  elaborate,  and  so  irrelevant  to  life.  Cor- 
rection then  became  inevitable  ;  and  it  came  from 
the  Illumination,  the  rationalist,  humanist  move- 
ment of  the  i8th  century,  with  its  science  and  its 
romance,  its  enlargement  both  of  interest  and  of 
heart,  its  sense  of  the  world  and  of  humanity,  its 
concrete  realism.  As  Luther  had  faced  the  reality  of 
the  moral  situation,  the  Illumination  faced  the  reahty 
of  the  intellectual  situation.  And  the  result  now 
is  that  we  are  driven  back  to  the  early  moral  genius 
of  the  Reformation,  to  its  evangelical  prime,  to  res- 
cue us  from  a  mere  eager  inteUectualism.  We  are 
forced  back,  beyond  all  eagerness  or  even  earnestness, 
on  the  thorough-going  moral  realism  which  is  the 
first  interest  of  the  Gospel.  We  are  driven  there 
for  a  refuge  from  the  Illumination  ;  both  from  the 
inteUectualism  which  overdoes  its  rationality,  and 
from  the  sentiment  which  overdoes  its  romance. 
At  the  present  hour  romantic  religion  has  sub- 
merged evangelical,  the  religion  of  affection  and 
temperament  has  obscured  the  religion  of  will  and 


164  The  Preacher  and 

conscience,  the  religion  of  love  or  lovelessness  the 
rehgion  of  holiness  or  sin.  Romantic  religion  lives 
in  the  sentiments  and  sympathies,  but  evangelical 

'  religion — faith — lives  in  repentance,  forgiveness, 
trust,  and  self-committal  to  the  Redeemer.  When 
Paul  was  in  his  seventh  heaven,  and  heard 
things  not  to  be  spoken,  it  was  a  romantic,  mystic 
moment  in  his  life.  But  he  did  not  boast  of  that, 
but  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  Cross,  and  the  faith  of  the 
Cross,  where  was  now  no  condemnation  but  peace — 
by  which  he  meant  not  calm  but  the  life-confidence 
of  reconciliation  and  co-operation  with  God.  His 
Christianity  lay  not  in  his  romantic  experiences 
but  in  his  evangelical.     We  need  a  more  searching 

'^evangelical  realism  to  protect  us  from  orthodoxism, 
rationalism,  and  the  temperamental  litterateurs. 
And  we  find  it  in  the  old  faith  (when  we  take  the 
word  faith  quite  seriously)  with  its  realist  demand 
for  a  new  theology. 

§ 
^'  If  we  are  to  preach  with  Gospel  effect  to  our 
time  we  must  give  up  the  idea  of  dragging  men  back 
to  the  dogmas  of  scholastic  Protestantism.  It  is 
no  more  wise  than  the  attempt  to  drag  them  back 
to  the  dogmas  and  institutions  of  the  medieval 
Church.  The  worship  of  orthodoxy  is  Protestant 
Catholicism,  Protestant  Romanism.  And  it  is 
what  none  of  the  great  men  did  who  have  chiefly 
made  Christianity  what  it  is.  Christianity  did  arise 
on  Jewish  soil ;  but  the  fathers  did  not  try  to  force 
the  world  back   into  Judaism,  or  to  any  oriental 


Religious   Reality  165 


creed.  They  poured  the  wine  of  Christianity  into 
the  bottles  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  spirit.  They 
met  with  their  Gospel  the  real  intellectual  problems 
of  their  time.  The  misfortune  was  that  their 
successors  did  not  know  when  that  time  was  by. 
And  so  it  was  also  with  the  great  Reformers.  Luther 
met  with  the  Gospel  his  time's  moral  need,  Calvin 
its  social  and  political.  That  touch  their  successors 
lost.  But  in  completing  this  work  we  can  only 
do  it  by  facing  the  situation  around  us  as  really  as 
the  heroes  did  theirs. 

For  instance,  we  must  meet  criticism  of  the  Bible 
with  a  hospitable  face.  We  have  learned  much 
from  it,  and  we  have  much  to  learn.  We  preachers, 
especially,  must  realize  how  it  has  rediscovered  the 
Bible,  as  Luther  rediscovered  the  Gospel.  We  must 
use  all  wise  and  tender  means  to  give  our  people  the 
results  of  that  rediscovery,  and  to  make  the  Bible 
for  them  the  real  historic  and  living  book  which  it 
has  so  widely  ceased  to  be.  We  must  avoid  irritating 
them  with  discoveries  of  what  it  is  not,  and  state- 
ments of  what  is  upset ;  and  we  must  kindle  them 
with  the  positive  exposition  of  what  it  is  now  found 
to  be  for  heart,  history,  faith  and  grace.  We  must 
get  rid,  as  we  wisely  can,  of  the  amateur  and  fan- 
tastic habit  of  laying  out  the  Bible  in  diagrams  and 
schemes,  which  treat  it  like  a  public  park,  and 
which  ignore  historic  and  critical  study.  We  must 
give  up  the  allegorical  interpretations  by  which 
some  attempt  to  save  its  verbal  inspiration,  now 
hopelessly  gone.     And  we  must  restrain  ourselves 


1 66  The  Preacher  and 

in  the  fanciful  use  of  texts  at  the  cost  of  the  historic 
revelation  which  the  whole  context  gives.  These 
practices  have  a  show  of  honouring  the  Bible,  but 

hey  really  treat  it  with  the  disrespect  that  is  always 
t  icre  when  we  presume  people  to  mean  another 
:  hing  than  they  say.     If  you  treat  a  text  mystically 

aake  it  clear  that  you  take  a  liberty  in  doing  so. 
i^reach  more  expository  sermons.  Take  long  pas- 
sages for  texts.  Perhaps  you  have  no  idea  how 
eager  people  are  to  have  the  Bible  expounded,  and 
how  much  they  prefer  you  to  unriddle  what  the 
Bible  says,  with  its  large  utterance,  than  to  confuse 
them  with  what  you  can  make  it  say  by  some 
ingenuity.  It  is  thus  you  will  get  real  preaching 
in  the  sense  of  preaching  from  the  real  situation 
of  the  Bible  to  the  real  situation  of  the  time.  It 
is  thus  you  make  history  preach  to  history,  the  past 
to  the  present,  and  not  merely  a  text  to  a  soul. 

§ 

Again  we  must  cultivate  reality  by  preaching  to 
the  social  situation,  to  social  sin.  It  is  impossible  to 
preach  with  reality  to  an  age  like  this  and  ignore  the 
social  crisis  and  demand.  We  must  face  the  questions 
put  to  the  Gospel  by  a  time  which  is  passing  from 
one  social  epoch  to  another.  It  is  to  the  Gospel  these 
questions  are  put,  though  they  are  addressed  to  the 
care  of  the  Church.  I  hope  the  Church  will  see  that 
they  reach  their  destination.  We  are  at  the  junction 
of  two  ages — the  Capitalist  and  the  Socialist.  And 
we  who  live  in  the  supreme  society  of  the  Church, 


Religious   Reality  167 

and  who  possess  the  word  of  moral  power  for  every 
age,  must  not  be  unprepared  with  a  relevant  word, 
even  if  we  have  not  yet  the  final  word.  It  is  a  work 
to  be  done  with  the  greatest  judgment.  And  it  is 
not  honestly  done  without  due  knowledge.  We 
must  know  the  ethic  of  the  Gospel  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  economics  of  the  age  on  the  other.  You 
will  not  be  so  ill-advised  as  to  make  this  the  staple 
of  your  pulpit.  Some  should  not  touch  it  there  at 
all.  It  is  not  for  every  preacher,  and  it  is  not  for  the 
preacher  alone,  but  for  the  preacher  co-operating 
with  men  of  affairs  who  will  add  his  knowledge  to 
their  own.  Neither  the  preacher  alone  nor  the  lay- 
men alone  makes  the  Church,  but  both  do.  But 
the  Church,  as  the  great  collective  preacher,  should 
have  some  social  word  that  deserves  public  attention 
and  respect,  even  if  it  cannot  secure  immediate 
belief.  The  realism  of  the  Gospel  and  of  the  age 
alike  require  that.  But  the  subject  is  so  large  I  will 
not  embark  on  it.  It  is  one  I  have  not  ignored  else- 
where. I  but  use  it  to  illustrate  my  wider  plea,  and 
to  enforce  the  demand  for  reality  in  our  preaching. 

§ 
I  would,  however,  go  on  to  press  upon  you  at  more 
length  the  demand  for  spiritual  reality,  a  spiritual 
reality  which  is  no  more  mere  sincerity  than  spiritual 
veracity  is  mere  plain  truth-teUing.  I  mean  the 
practical  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  actual  pre- 
dicament of  the  human  soul  is  its  moral  case,  that 
its  moral  case  is  need  and  not  strength,  that  its  need 
is  a  moral  more  than  a  sympathetic  need,  that  it  is 


1 68  The  Preacher  and 

a  matter  of  conscience  and  holiness  more  than  of 
heart  and  affection,  of  sin  more  than  wrong — though, 
of  course,  it  is  both. 

And  here  I  will  venture  to  confess  that  the  con- 
dition of  the  Church  may  well  cause  to  reahst  faith 
something  less  than  high  satisfaction.  Let  me  not 
be  accused  of  being  dull  to  love  and  pity  if  I  say 
that  these  have  been  developed  by  the  Churches 
we  know  best  at  the  cost  of  the  spiritual  life,  of  the 
moral  soul,  and  of  a  Gospel  of  holiness.  I  assure  you  I 
have  the  affections  of  other  men,  and  a  passion  mostly 
too  keen  to  be  safely  loosed  and  let  go.  I  have  a 
sense  of  wrong  in  things  that  would  fill  many  of 
these  lectures  with  violent,  and  perhaps  some  bitter, 
denunciation.  It  is  a  grief  to  me  to  walk  the  streets, 
and  to  see,  with  eyes  too  dim  to  see,  the  needy 
waifs,  the  dear,  poor  women,  the  lean,  weary,  great- 
eyed  children.  O,  these  sheep,  what  have  they  done  ! 
Love  and  pity  are  to  me  a  daily  pain.  And  yet  it 
was  not  the  sorrow  of  the  world  that  broke  the  heart 
of  Christ,  but  its  wickedness.  He  was  equal  to  its 
sorrow,  and  His  power  was  never  below  His  pity.  He 
began  by  being  the  world's  healer.  But  what  broke 
him  was  its  sin.  That  mighty  heart,  so  capacious  to 
receive,  and  so  swift  to  pity,  had  to  end  as  the 
moral  Saviour.  His  witness  of  the  loving  God  had  to 
become  His  work  for  the  Holy.  And  the  greatest 
thing  He  could  do  in  His  love  and  pity  was  to  redeem 
us.  He  lived  benignly  among  the  poignant  realities 
of  human  sorrow,  but  what  killed  Him  was  His 
realization  of  human  sin  and  guilt.    The  healer  of 


Religious  Reality  169 

our  pain  had  to  practise  a  more  radical  realism 
than  pain  stirs,  and  become  the  destroyer  of  our 
wickedness.  Only  so  could  the  love  and  pity  prevail 
at  last.  The  brotherhood  of  man  could  only  come 
by  the  communion  of  Saints  in  the  household  of 
faith,  of  men  who  by  the  awful  Cross  were  scarcely 
saved.  Yet  to-day  this  Cross,  with  its  moral  reaUsm 
dredging  the  very  bottom  of  the  conscience,  and 
descending  even  into  hell,  is  the  centre  of  much 
more  sentiment  than  repentance,  and  of  far  more 
celebration  than  surrender. 

We  suffer  from  three  things,  I  will  say.  The 
Church,  of  course,  has  always  suffered  from  whatever 
was  the  great  world-power  of  the  age,  and  suffered 
either  by  oppression  from  it,  or,  worse,  by  infection. 
It  suffered  so  from  pagan  Rome.  It  has  suffered 
from  the  dynasties  of  modern  Europe.  And  as 
the  world-power  of  to-day  is  the  money  power  the 
Church  to-day  suffers  from  the  plutocracy.  I  do 
not  say  from  the  plutocrats.  Many  of  them  mean 
well,  and  do  well.  But  it  suffers  from  the  plutocracy. 
But  this,  again,  is  a  matter  too  large  ;  and  I  want  to 
come  nearer  home  to  the  matter  of  our  spiritual 
realism.  I  will  say  then  the  Church  suffers  from 
three  things. 

1.  From  triviaHty  (with  externality). 

2.  From  uncertainty  of  its  foundation. 

3.  From  satisfaction  with  itself 

And  to  cure  these  the  Gospel  we  have  to  preach 
prescribes — 
I.  For  our  triviality,  a  new  note  of  greatness  in 


170  The  Preacher  and 

our  creed,  the  note  that  sounds  in  a  theology  more 
than  in  a  sentiment. 

2.  For  our  uncertainty,  a  new  note  of  wrestling 
and  reahty  in  our  prayer. 

3.  For  our  complacency,  a  new  note  of  judgment  in 
our  salvation. 

And  these  three  remedies  cannot  be  taken  by 
way  of  mere  outward  enterprise,  (which  will,  indeed, 
collapse  for  want  of  them) .  They  can  only  be  taken 
inwardly,  by  means  of  more  religion,  more  positive 
religion,  and  more  personal  religion.  I  believe  that 
a  Church  really  sanctified  would  develop  more  power, 
light,  and  machinery  for  dealing  with  the  tremendous 
reahties  of  the  world  than  is  possible  while  we  are 
groping  in  the  dark,  picking  our  timid  path  in  econo- 
mics, or  flogging  up  the  energies  of  a  flagging  faith. 

§ 

I.  As  to  the  triviality  from   which  we  suffer. 

I  am  afraid  that,  for  the  general  public,  religion 
has  become  associated  with  the  small  and  negligible 
side  of  the  soul.  Nowhere  has  mediocrity  its  chance 
as  it  has  it  in  religion.  Nowhere  has  the  gossipy 
side  of  life  such  scope.  Nowhere  has  quackery  of 
every  kind  such  a  field  and  such  a  harvest,  I  know 
very  well  that  this  is  a  perversion  of  the  tenderness 
of  religion  for  the  weak  things  of  the  world  and  for 
the  individual  case.  But  a  perversion  it  is.  The 
weak  things  are  not  only  considered,  they  take 
command.  They  claim  to  give  the  law.  They  make 
a  majority.    They  trade  upon  Christian  love,  and 


Religious   Reality  171 

belittle  it.     Eternity  and  its  issues  go  out  of  faith 
as    love  comes    in.      Churches    and   preachers   are 
choked  with  a  crowd  of  paltry  things  kept  in  place 
by  no  sure  authority,  and  dignified  by  no  governing 
power.     Both  ministers  and  Churches  have  as  much 
of  a  struggle  to  get  time  for  spiritual  culture  as  if 
it   were   none   of   their   business.     Christian   ethic 
suffers  from  what  I  may  call    inversion.     I  mean 
this.     When  Paul,  the  persecutor,    goes  the  length 
he  does   in   considering   the   weak   brother  it   is  a 
very  great  trophy  of  the   moral  victory  of  Christ, 
and  it  prescribes  a  principle  of  Christian  ethic.     But 
it  is  a  total  inversion  of  that  ethic  when  the  weakling 
sets  up  a  claim,  and   demands  as  a  right  what  the 
apostle  gave  but  as  a  grace.     That  is  overweening 
in  the  weak,  and  it  is  fatal  for  the  Church.     It  turns 
consideration   to  pampering,   and  makes  Christian 
pity  the  factory  of  moral  paupers  with  the  paupers' 
audacity.     Or,    on   the   other   hand,    the   Church's 
worship,  which  should  gather  and  greaten  its  soul, 
is  sacrificed  to  its  work.     You  have  bustle  all  the 
week    and   baldness    all   the    Sunday.     You   have 
energy    everywhere    except     in    the    Spirit.     The 
religious  material  is  tugged  and  stretched  to  cover 
so  much  that  it  grows  too  thin   for  anything  and 
parts  into  rents  and  rags.     We  are  more  anxious  to 
cover  ground  than  to  secure  it,    to  evangelize  the 
worid  than  to  convert  it.     It  is  faithless  impatience, 
of  the  youngest  thinnest  kind.     A  bustling  institu- 
tion may  cover  spiritual  destitution,  just  as  Christian 
work  may  be  taken  up  as   a  narcotic  to  spiritual 


172  The   Preacher  and 

doubt  and  emptiness.  The  minister's  study 
becomes  more  of  an  office  than  an  oratory.  Com- 
mittees suck  away  the  breath  of  power.  Socialities 
become  the  only  welcome  sacraments.  The  tea- 
meeting  draws  people  together  as  the  communion  table 
does  not.  The  minister  may  talk  the  silliest  platitudes 
without  resentment,  but  he  may  not  smoke  a  cigar 
in  some  places  without  causing  an  explosion.  And 
religion  becomes  an  ambulance,  not  a  pioneer. 

But  why  need  I  go  on  with  a  diagnosis  which  is 
only  too  apt  to  describe  tendencies  as  if  they  were 
results,  and  treat  extreme  cases  as  if  they  were  the 
rule.  Let  us  turn  from  observation  to  experience. 
Let  us  look  within.  Do  our  hungry  souls  not  tell 
us  faithfully  that  much  of  our  vivid  and  ingenious 
talk  about  statistics  of  Church  attendance,  about 
advanced  and  popular  methods  is  well,  is  eloquent — 
but  'tis  not  true.  It  regards  the  Church  as  a  going 
concern  rather  than  a  communion  of  saints.  It 
has  the  tone  of  the  press  rather  than  of  the  Gospel. 
It  has  not  the  accent  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  not  his 
solemn  rushing  wind,  nor  the  piercing  of  his  dis- 
cerning sword.  It  is  not  the  truth,  the  kind  of 
truth,  that  goes  to  the  reality  of  the  spiritual  case.  It 
treats  symptoms  rather  than  diagnoses  the  disease. 
Suppose  Christ  had  read  no  deeper  than  that  the 
predicament  of  man  and  Israel !  Suppose  He  had 
pierced  no  closer  to  moral  reality  than  that  !  Sup- 
pose He  had  measured  His  success  by  His  supporters. 
Suppose  His  great  and  first  object  had  been  con- 
versions. 


Religious   Reality  173 

§ 

For  that  state  of  things,  that  voXvTrpayfiocrvvv 
both  in  the  Church  and  the  world,  there  is  no  out- 
ward remedy.  What  we  need  most  is  not  the 
re-organization  of  society.  That  is  a  topic  so  actual 
that  the  press  will  discuss  it  freely.  But  the  actual 
is  one  thing,  the  real  is  another.  The  actual  is  the 
present  hour,  the  real  is  the  eternal  power.  And  the 
reahty  of  the  situation  it  is  hard  to  make  people 
face.  A  business  man  learns  the  habit  of  facing 
fully  his  financial  position,  and  noting  it  ahnost 
daily.  But  we  have  not  learned  the  habit  of  facing 
fully  and  courageously  the  moral  situation.  When 
we  do,  we  find  that  the  re-organization  of  society  is 
a  small  matter  compared  with  the  re-organization 
of  the  soul.  And  no  new  methods  will  do  that.  No 
reformation  of  our  modus  operandi  will  do  that. 
You  cannot  do  that  by  institutionalizing  our  re- 
hgious  agencies.  The  re-organizing  of  the  soul  is 
Redeemer's  work.  We  have  to  secure  our  found- 
ations anew.  We  Protestants  have  always  to  be 
securing  the  foundation  anew.  It  is  our  genius  to 
plant  every  man  on  the  Rock,  and  to  plant  the 
whole  man  there.  He  has  continually  to  refer  himself 
to  Christ,  and  to  appropriate  Christ's  salvation  anew. 
We  have  constantly  to  acquire  what  we  inherit. 
The  branch  must  ever  draw  from  the  trunk  vine. 
We  must  keep  in  close  contact  at  one  end  with 
spiritual  reality.  If  we  do  not  we  are  cut  off  and 
withered.     That  is,  we  become  sectional  and  shrunk, 


174  The  Preacher  and 

sectarian  and  trivial.  And  churches  may  become 
hives  of  Httle  bees,  with  the  due  proportion  of 
drones  and  stings,  instead  of  fraternities  of  godly, 
great,  wise,  and  worthy  souls. 

We  must  regain  our  sense  of  soul  greatness,  and 
our  sense  of  its  eternal  price.  If  we  measure  things 
by  the  Cross,  which  is  the  price  of  salvation,  and  the 
touchstone  of  spiritual  reality,  God  cares  more  that 
we  should  be  great  than  that  we  should  be  happy. 
He  cares  more  that  we  should  trust  and  help  than 
that  we  should  enjoy.  Christ's  love(which  was  God's) 
was  all  help  and  no  enjoyment.  Whereas  for  most 
people,  Christian  people,  it  is  the  other  way.  A 
religion  that  makes  men  right  and  real  seems  to 
have  no  chance  with  one  that  makes  them  feel  safe 
and  "  good."  But  the  Churches  can  do  nothing  per- 
manent and  nothing  final  for  human  welfare  till  the 
soul  gets  its  own.  The  Church  is  not  "  first  of  all  a 
,  working  Church."  It  is  a  communion  of  saints  and 
^lovers,  a  company  of  believers,  a  fellowship  of 
spiritual  realists.  It  is  there  first  to  feed  the  soul 
with  eternal  reality,  to  stablish,  strengthen,  and 
settle  the  soul  upon  the  Rock  of  Ages.  You  cannot 
expect  ill  fed  people  to  devise  much  wisdom,  or  do 
much  good.  And  many  in  our  active  churches  are 
very  hungry  as  to  the  soul.  They  are  anaemic  in 
the  Spirit.  They  are  fed  upon  sentiment  and  not  on 
faith.  They  have  hectic  energy — and  leanness  of 
soul. 

§ 

If  the  soul  is  to  realize  its  greatness,  and  its  union 


Religious   Reality  175 

with  God's  eternity  in  the  world,  it  must  be  nour- 
ished with  more  congenial  food.  What  shall  that  be  ? 
The  philosophies,  the  humanities,  the  mysticisms  ? 
Can  the  soul  be  settled  on  reality  by  philosophies 
of  its  own  cosmic  place  ?  Can  it  be  stayed  on 
psychologies  of  its  mystic  structure  and  volcanic 
subliminal  depths  ?  Do  we  come  into  tune  with  the 
infinite  by  mystic  immersion  in  the  sea  of  Being  ? 
Does  our  reconciliation  consist  in  recovering  a 
forgotten  sense  that  human  nature  is  always  in 
unbroken  continuity  with  the  divine  ?  Can  we 
cultivate  moral  reality  by  a  mere  transcendent 
ethic  ?  Many  a  gross  Pharisee  is  a  mighty  moral- 
ist ;  and  he  believes  himself  sincere  with  it. 
The  deadliest  Pharisaism  is  not  hypocrisy;  it  is 
the  unconscious  Pharisaism  of  unreality.  Can  we 
escape  that  by  mere  moral  vigour  and  rigour  ? 
Can  we  greaten  the  soul  for  good  by  literary 
contact  with  epic  heroisms,  or  aesthetic  spectacles 
of  its  dramatic  fate  ?  Can  we  even  dilate  and 
confirm  the  soul  into  eternity  by  loftiest  speculation 
upon  the  nature  of  Godhead  and  the  psychology  of 
Trinity  ? 

No.  However  these  things  move  us  they  do  not 
make  us.  They  may  alter  us  but  they  do  not  change 
us.  They  refit  us  but  they  do  not  reform  us.  The 
greatness  of  the  soul,  the  greatness  of  faith,  cannot 
be  sustained  upon  any  scrutiny  of  the  soul,  whether 
created  or  increate,  human  or  divine,  not  by  any  psy- 
chology of  man  or  of  God  ;  but  only  upon  the  experi- 
ence of  the  soul  redeemed.     The  mere  contemplation 


176 


The  Preacher  and 


of  Christ  will  not  save  you.  You  must  appropriate 
Him.  You  must  know  the  fellowship  of  His  death. 
But  that  means  that  it  is  moral  action  that  is  real- 
ity. God  Himself  is  an  ivepjeia.  And  it  is  by 
the  fellowship  of  the  supreme  moral  action  of  the 
spiritual  world  in  Christ's  Cross  that  our  soul 
comes  to  reality,  to  its  true  self,  its  real  depths, 
and  its  eternal  destiny.  And  most  of  all  we 
share  the  last  realism  of  life  by  the  sense,  so  gone 
from  our  practical  creed,  quanti  ponderis  sit  pecca- 
tum,  what  it  cost  the  Redeemer  to  redeem.  No 
estimate  of  the  soul  which  may  be  reached  by 
itself  is  so  true  and  great  as  His  estimate,  who 
counted  and  paid  the  whole  cost  of  the  great  war  for 
its  recovery.  That  estimate  of  sin  is  expressed  in 
the  Cross.  And  if  the  preachers  do  not  feel  this 
(as  they  often  do  not)  the  Church  must,  and  must 
force  the  preachers'  hand.  But  to  learn  the  Cross  so 
is  no  mere  matter  of  Bible  class  or  of  theology.  We 
must  give  it  time  and  scope  to  act  upon  us,  as  we  do 
not  now  do,  before  we  can  presume  to  act  with  it 
upon  the  world.  And  then  perhaps  we  may  cease 
to  hear  so  much  of  that  talk  which  paralyses  the 
preacher  about  short  sermons,  incessant  visits,  or  reli- 
gious bustle.    Justification  is  far  more  than  visitation. 


It  is  impossible  to  banish  sentiment  from  religion 
without  impoverishing  it,  but  it  is  quite  necessary 
to  teach  it  its  true  place  ;  and  never  so  necessary 
as   to-day.     It  cannot   be   allowed  to  lead,  as  in 


Religious   Reality  177 

so  many  cases  it  does.   What  imagination  did  in  medi- 
eval Catholicism,  that  sentiment  does  in  contemporary 
Protestantism.     And  the  one  is  a  guide  no  safer  than 
the  other.    Both  tend  to  the  unreal.    But  there  is  this 
difference,  that  the  Bible,  which  is  full  of  imagina- 
tion, has  no  sentiment.     Such  an  episode  as  that  of 
the  alabaster  box  is  not  sentiment  but    passion. 
It  is  certain  that  sentiment  occupies  a  place  with 
us  which  is  quite  out  of  the  perspective  of  New 
Testament  faith.    It  makes  the  language  of  that  faith 
unintelligible.    It  can  be  for  the  hour,  and  for  our 
democratic  Churches,  a  foe  as  dangerous  to  reality 
as  dishonesty  is.     It  creates  a  demand  for  emotions 
which  become  too  facile  in  the  supply,  and,  therefore, 
thoughtless  and  unreal.    Unreality  is  worse  than  dis- 
honesty.   And  we  even  have  in  our  rehgion  what  has 
been  called  the  pharisaism  of  the  pubhcan.     One  has 
often  to  note  in  history  the  total  lack  of  sound  judg- 
ment that  goes  with  extreme  pietism,  or  the  absence 
of  reality,  and  even  veracity,  that  may  go  with  the 
saintly    type.     We    have,    moreover,   the    modem 
and  most  insidious  type  of  Pharisaism— the  uncon- 
scious hypocrite,  the  man  or  woman  not  of  fraud 
but  of  pose,  not  of  deep  and   dark  design  but  of 
subtle    egoism,   prompt    certainty,    and   facile   re- 
ligiosity.     The    mischief    lies  in    the    unreality  of 
their  faith  and  character  rather  than  in  a  calculated 
hypocrisy.     The  victims  are  fair  and  fickle,  rather 
than  hollow  and  hard. 

I    would    trace    the    undue  place  which  modem 
religion  gives  to  sentiment  to  the  undue  subjectivity 


178  The  Preacher  and 

of  the  whole  modern  type  of  faith,  and  its  loss  of 
hold  upon  the  mind.  And,  definitely,  I  would  trace 
it  to  the  loss  of  a  real  positive  authority,  the  loss 
of  an  objective  grasp  of  the  world's  moral  crisis 
in  the  Christian  centre  of  the  Cross.  So  long  as 
the  chief  value  of  the  Cross  is  its  value  for  man, 
so  long  as  its  first  effect  is  upon  man  and  not 
upon  God,  so  long  as  its  prime  action  is  not  upon 
reality  but  upon  our  feeling  about  reahty,  then 
so  long  shall  we  be  led  away  from  direct  con- 
tact with  reality  at  our  religious  centre  ;  and  we 
shall  be  induced  to  dwell  more  upon  our  expe- 
rience of  reconciliation  than  on  the  God  by 
whose  self-reconciliation  we  are  reconciled.  There 
is  something  fatal  to  a  real  and  thorough  religion 
in  a  view  which  makes  the  finished  work  of 
God  to  depend  for  its  fate  upon  human  experi- 
ence. It  makes  God  a  mere  offerer,  proposer, 
or  promiser,  until  we  have  become  receivers.  It 
might  even  descend  to  present  God  in  a  light  little 
different  from  that  of  a  candidate  for  the  suffrage 
of  our  faith.  "  It  generates  a  religion  of  words, 
and  not  of  purposes  and  facts,  having  its  reality 
in  the  creature  and  only  its  proposal  of  reality  in 
God  "  (Ed.  Irving).  To  regain  our  spiritual  reality 
and  its  moral  tone  we  must  go  back  from  our  sub- 
jective experience,  not  only  to  the  objectivity  of 
a  historic  Cross,  but  to  the  objectivity  and  the 
cruciality  of  God's  spiritual  action  behind  that  historic 
Cross,  to  a  central  action  within  His  own  nature. 
Our   spiritual  reality  and   its   ethical  results,  both 


Religious   Reality  179 

for  private  and  public  righteousness,  mean  a  fresh 
grasp  by  the  Church  of  the  work  of  Christ  upon  the 
hoHness  of  God  and  upon  the  principle  of  evil.  That  is 
the  spiritual  condition  on  which  alone  we  can  restore 
the  note  of  moral  realism  that  has  died  from  our 
sympathetic  piety.  I  allude  often  to  that  frequent 
combination  of  rationalism  with  sentiment  which 
marks  both  a  hard  orthodoxy  and  a  hard  heresy. 
The  sentiment  then  represents  the  effort  on  the 
part  of  intellectualism  to  make  up  by  feehng, 
cultivated  if  not  forced,  for  the  great  and  real 
emotion  that  flows  of  itself  from  contact  with  the 
supernatural  issues  involved,  and  from  a  share  in 
the  central  moral  drama  of  existence. 


2.  Besides  the  triviality  and  extemahty  I  have 
named,  we  suffer  from  uncertainty.  For  the 
hour  perhaps  the  Church  has  more  need  to  cultivate 
certainty  than  sanctity.  It  is  only  the  certainty 
we  lack  that  can  give  us  the  sanctity  we  desire. 
If  we  are  duly  certain  about  God's  hohness  our 
own  will  follow.  It  is  only  the  certainty  of  the 
Cross  that  can  give  us  the  sanctity  of  the  Spirit. 
For  the  fountain  head  of  the  Spirit  is  the  Cross. 
An  established  or  a  Catholic  Church  can  flourish 
upon  mere  assent ;  but  for  our  purposes  we  need 
certainty  as  a  personal  experience,  certainty  at 
first  hand  from  God  in  Christ.  One  has  truly  said, 
"  The  grand  remedy  for  the  present  epidemic  of 
doubt  is  a  personal  interest  in  the  struggle  against 


1 8  o  The  Preacher  and 

evil."  We  do  not  get  the  full  force  of  these  words 
till  we  interpret  them  of  Christ's  decisive  battle  with 
evil  in  the  Cross,  and  our  part  and  lot  there.  The 
certainty  which  criticism  is  sapping  can  never  be 
regained  by  more  positive  criticism.  The  whole 
situation  is  being  changed  by  the  new  movement ; 
and  we  are  being  forced  on  a  new  basis  of  certainty — 
or  rather  forced  anew  on  the  old,  on  the  evangehcal 
basis  of  personal  salvation,  personal  forgiveness, 
experienced  from  the  Cross  of  Christ  as  the  re- 
demption of  the  whole  moral  world. 

For  holiness  of  the  evangelical  type  we  surely 
need  this  certainty — for  the  true  holiness,  which 
grows  upon  our  faith  and  we  know  it  not.  The 
forms  of  sanctity  in  vogue  are  a  little  too  self- 
conscious,  and  too  directly  cultivated.  It  is  always 
dangerous  to  make  religion  one  of  the  professions. 
And  to  work  at  holiness  can  be  fatal.  Yet  some 
forms  of  sanctity  much  admired  seem  to  me  to  be 
pursued  as  a  spiritual  luxury  rather  than  worn 
upon  faith  like  a  spiritual  halo  as  unfelt  as  our  hair. 
When  Moses  came  down  from  the  Mount  he  wist 
not  that  his  face  shone.  We  languish  after  "  peace, 
perfect  peace  "  when  we  should  be  at  godly  war. 
The  sinlessness  we  admire  may  be  no  more  than 
poverty  of  blood.  And  we  sing  mawkishly  about 
"  Angels  of  Jesus,  angels  of  light  "  when  we  should 
be  wrestling  with  them  for  the  new  name.  It  is 
\\  so  easy  to  do  Christian  work,  and  so  hard  to  pray. 

Magna  res  est,  magnum  omnino  bonum,  cum  Jesu 
conversan.    It  is  not  hard  to  be  devotional,  but 


Religious  Reality  1 8  i 

it  is  hard  to  pray.  Orare  est  lahorare.  What  is 
called  a  gift  in  prayer  is  not  uncommon.  What 
is  harder  to  come  at  is  the  gift  from  prayer,  the 
prayer  that  prevails.  Men  may  even  take  up  Chris- 
tian work  to  evade  the  arduous  toil  of  spiritual 
concentration.  And  outward  work  often  does 
cost  us  our  spiritual  insight,  certainty,  and  reality. 
But  without  soul-certainty  neither  our  work  nor 
our  principle  has  any  meaning.  It  is  soul-certainty 
that  the  world  needs,  even  more  than  sound  prin- 
ciples— not  soul-facility  but  soul-certainty,  not 
ready  religion  but  sure.  And  it  is  soul-certainty 
that  the  ordinary  able  preacher,  of  busy  effort, 
good  cricket,  vivid  interests,  actual  topics,  re- 
cent reading,  and  ingenious  prayers  cannot  give 
you.  Knowledge  may  give  you  convictions,  and 
thought  ideas  ;  conscience  will  give  you  principles, 
and  the  heart  sentiments ;  but  that  soul-certainty, 
that  saved  certainty,  which  is  Eternal  Life,  can 
only  arise  from  something  very  objective  and 
positive,  which  turns  the  truths  of  the  preacher 
to  the  word  of  authority,  sets  him  in  the  Evangelic 
succession,  and  clothes  him  with  the  apostolic 
power.  Our  preaching  has  lost  the  note  of  autho- 
rity— though  not  the  air  of  authority,  the  note  of 
authoritativeness.  That  note,  indeed,  may  be  a  phase 
of  our  Pharisaism.  But  it  has  lost  the  stamp  and 
effect  of  authority.  The  minister  is  more  strongly 
induced  to  be  the  friend  and  comrade  of  his  people 
than  their  moral  authority  and  guide.  And  he  is 
tempted  to  care  more  (as  the  public  care  more) 


1 82  The  Preacher  and 

for  the  happy  touch  in  his  preaching  than  the  great 
Word. 

What  we  need  is  not  so  much  something  pious 
as  something  positive  which  makes  piety.  We  need 
fewer  homihes  upon  "  Fret  not  "  or  "  Study  to  be 
Quiet,"  fewer  essays  on  "  the  Beauty  of  Hohness," 
or  other  aspects  of  pensive  piety.  And  we  need 
more  sermons  on  "  Through  Him  the  world  is 
crucified  to  me,  and  I  to  the  world,"  or  "  Him 
who  was  made  sin  for  us."  There  is  the  real  incar- 
nation, the  emergence  of  God's  reality,  the  reality 
of  God  as  an  energy.  There  is  the  incarnation  which 
puts  us  at  once  at  the  moral  heart  of  reaUty — the 
Son  made  sin  rather  than  the  Word  made  flesh. 
The  incarnation  has  no  religious  value  but  as  the 
background  of  the  atonement.  And  here  is  the  real 
righteousness  of  God.  It  is  our  practical,  experiential 
incorporation  into  the  holy  Christ.  It  is  not  our 
success  in  doing  God's  will  in  a  Christian  spirit. 
That  is  a  Gospel  of  whose  ineptitude  I  confess  I 
am  tired.  It  is  at  the  root  of  much  of  our  present 
impotence,  Christ's  Gospel  is  the  gift  (through  the 
gift  of  Christ)  of  a  totally  new  righteousness,  which  is 
identical  with  faith,  rises  in  forgiveness,  emerges  in  re- 
pentance, acts  in  love,  spreads  in  society,  and  proceeds 
in  Eternal  Life.  What  is  sanctity  if  it  do  not  bring 
a  deepening  repentance  ?  It  was  when  Christ  came 
to  closer  quarters  with  God's  holiness  that  man's 
sin  roused  that  in  Him  which  is  repentance  in  us, 
and  crushed  Him  to  death.  And  the  repentance 
of  the  young  convert  is  the  merest  regret  compared 


Religious   Reality  183 

with  that  of  the  aged  disciple.  What  is  our  sancti- 
lication  but  a  perpetual  conversion,  the  realization 
of  pardon  in  detail.  That  way  alone  lies  the  reality 
on  which  man's  moral  soul  rests,  and  with  his  moral 
soul  his  social  future  and  his  eternal  destiny. 


The  soul  of  the  age  asks  us  to  help  it  to  footing. 
And  we  try — when  we  can  steady  our  own  feet  for 
a  moment.  And  how  do  we  often  proceed  ?  Why, 
we  are  so  ill-found  in  the  autonomy  and  supremacy 
of  faith,  that,  instead  of  a  fresh  recourse  to 
Christ,  we  cry  to  the  men  of  science  in  the  other 
boat  to  help  us.  We  are  so  incredulous  of  the 
knowledge  contained  in  faith,  we  are  so  sure  that 
real  knowledge  cannot  come  by  the  moral  way 
of  faith,  but  only  by  intellectual  science  of  some 
kind,  that  we  look  with  nervous  anxiety  for 
corroboration — nay,  more,  for  verification — from 
the  savants.  We  are  actually  relieved  at  the 
prospect  of  ghosts,  to  vouch,  on  the  authority  of 
the  Psychical  Society,  for  a  sure  immortality  that 
we  have  ceased  to  find  in  Christ.  And  we  are 
grateful  to  the  original  and  delightful  Professor 
WiUiam  James  and  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  for  the 
way  in  which  their  fresh  results  make  good 
the  sad  defects  of  our  Christian  faith  as  to  the 
spiritual  nature  of  the  world,  or  the  spiritual  depths 
of  the  soul.  They  tell  us  the  old  materialism  is 
dead,  and  we  breathe  again.  They  suggest  that 
the  old  agnosticism  is  dying,  and  we  are  cheered. 


184  The  Preacher  and 

We  look  to  them  and  our  faces  are  lightened.  For 
a  time  at  least  they  are  lightened,  till  some  ingenious 
fellow  suggests  new  misgivings.  Then  we  become 
less  certain  that  the  new  idealism  will  sustain  the 
soul's  life,  and  we  grow  anxious  again.  Or  we 
find  ourselves  after  a  delightful  evening  with  the 
subliminal  self,  at  deadly  grips  with  a  ferocious 
and  ignoble  passion. 

But  we  reflect,  perhaps,  that  though  we  personally 
are  weak  and  contrary,  yet  a  new  presentiment  of  the 
unseen  has  laid  hold  of  the  modern  mind,  and  we 
think  there  may  be  hope  for  Christianity  still.  So 
when  that  modem  mind  asks  us  for  help  to  a  footing 
we  still  turn  to  men  of  science,  to  men  often  who 
evidently  never  in  their  lives  read  a  theological  classic 
or  an  authority  on  moral  philosophy,  who  indeed 
might  scout  the  idea,  and  we  ask  them  to  assure 
the  inquirer,  with  a  certainty  beyond  ours,  that 
things  promise  well  for  a  soul.  We  do  this,  instead 
of  descending  upon  science  or  its  imagination  with 
a  sureness  which  has  nothing  to  gain  in  the  way 
of  certainty  but  everything  to  give,  when  it  is  a 
question  of  the  certainty  above  and  beneath  all. 
Is  it  not  a  nervous  and  pusillanimous  Christian- 
ity, devoid  of  self-respect  ?  How  can  we  hope  to 
regain  the  influence  the  pulpit  has  lost  until  we 
come  with  the  surest  Word  in  all  the  world  to  the 
guesses  of  science,  the  maxims  of  ethic,  and  the 
instincts  of  art. 

Meantime,  all  kinds  of  occultism  exploit  this 
groping  hunger  of  the  age  in  the  interests  of  their 


Religious  Reality  185 

hobby.  They  beHeve  not  Moses  and  the  prophets, 
but  they  would  beHeve  if  one  returned  from  the 
dead.  They  have  lost  the  sense  of  moral  evidence, 
which  is  faith,  and  they  are  devoted  to  phantas- 
mal, which  is  sight.  The  rubbish  that  is  grotesquely 
called  Christian  science  is  the  scoriae  of  a  volcano. 
It  means,  being  interpreted,  that  the  upheaval  of 
the  hour  is  not  due  to  the  need  for  truth,  formal 
and  stateable,  but  for  power.  It  is  soul  certainty 
and  moral  reality  that  we  crave  for  more  than  any 
ology  or  any  doxy.  We  demand  the  unseen  not 
in  the  form  of  a  doctrine,  or  even  an  idea,  far 
less  a  system,  but  as  an  energy,  a  life  principle 
of  rescue,  power,  authority.  Men  ask  us,  not, 
"  What  do  you  believe  ?  but  "  What  helps  you, 
really  ?  "  What  does  it  matter  about  our  belief 
if  it  do  not  help  ?  And  there  is  but  one  way 
to  that  reahty.  The  reahty  that  matters,  and 
that  helps  the  race  is  redemption.  Our  puny  indi- 
vidualism is  always  asking,  "  What  helps  me  ?  "  But 
we  shall  get  no  satisfactory  answer  even  to  that 
question  upon  the  lines  of  mere  subjective  feeling 
— as  we  might  say  of  a  meal  "  it  does  me  good,  I 
feel  fed  " — but  only  upon  those  ethical  lines  which 
include  the  whole  race,  though  they  may  for  our 
individual  selves  sometimes  bring  us  rather  to  heroic 
confidence  than  to  happy  peace. 

The  note  of  the  higher  age  is  moral  realism.  It  is 
the  quest  for  unfailing  love,  in  the  spirit  of  unsparing 
ethical  realism,  the  quest,  in  a  word,  for  holy  love. 
It  is  the  quest  which  is  met  in  prophet,  Christ, 


1 86  The  Preacher    and 

and  apostle.  And  the  focus  of  the  whole  answer 
is  still  the  Cross,  where  the  holy  love  of  the  Eternal 
spared  not  His  own  Son  in  face  of  the  ghastly 
realism  of  guilt.    We  can  trust  love  only  as  it  is  holy. 


But  I  can  still  hear  the  pertinacious  citizen  of 
his  own  age,  who  is  a  Chauvinist  or  Jingo  of  his 
own  century  as  some  are  of  their  own  country, 
who  is  totally  disqualified  for  reading  either  his 
time  or  his  land  because  he  knows  no  other — I 
can  hear  him  say,  "  Are  not  Abana  and  Pharpar 
at  our  own  doors  better  than  that  provincial  old 
Jordan  ?  Are  not  art,  science,  ethic,  sentiment, 
and  philanthropy,  however  defective,  better  than 
these  Hebrew  old  clothes  ?  Is  the  answer  to  the 
soul  still  in  the  worn  old  past  and  not  in  the  modem 
spirit  ?  "  Yes,  that  is  so.  The  answer  is  in  the 
old  past,  in  the  historic  cross  of  Christ  or  nowhere. 
"  But  even  Paul  was  only  a  Judaist  of  genius  who 
disfigured  Christ  by  rabbinic  notions.  And  we 
are  so  weary  of  the  old  theologies."  But  I  was 
not  thinking  of  theologies.  I  had  in  my  mind  a 
deeper  weariness  than  yours,  and  I  was  thinking  of 
principahties  and  powers.  When  shall  we  learn 
that  Paul,  for  instance,  was  not  a  dogmatist  but 
the  apostle  of  an  act  of  grace  which  condensed  in 
itself  the  moral  energy  of  Eternal  Reahty  ?  He  was 
the  vehicle  of  a  passionate  soul-experience,  soul- 
certainty,  and  moral  reality.  He  was  saturated 
with  theology,  as  you  are  with  (let  us  say)  psychical 


Religious   Reality  187 


science,  but  he  was  not  a  dogmatician.  He  was 
afire  with  the  faith  which  is  a  Hfe,  with  an  experience 
which  made  his  mere  ideas  possibly  inconsistent 
but  still  incandescent.  I  have  already  pointed 
out  how,  to  find  expression  for  these  experi- 
ences from  the  Cross,  he  seized  every  likely  idea, 
and  pressed  it  into  service,  whenever  he  met  it — 
in  Judaism,  Gnosticism,  Roman  law  or  elsewhere. 
I  was  thinking  of  the  weariness  which  the  theologies 
were  very  earnest  efforts  to  heal.  It  is  the  old 
perennial  curse  that  lies  on  us — and  it  is  the  old 
eternal  cure.  If  you  feel  the  curse  (and  it  is  moral 
dullness  not  to  feel  it),  where  do  you  find  so  deep 
a  treatment  of  it,  and  so  many  cases  of  cure,  as  in 
the  theologies  of  the  Cross  ?  That  which  makes 
the  Church  is  still  the  key  of  the  world.  The 
act  of  the  Cross  is  still  the  soul's  centre,  the  centre 
of  human  destiny,  and  the  centre  of  the  real  pres- 
ence of  God  ;  it  is  not  the  centre  of  our  worship 
alone.  It  is  the  centre  of  that  evil  conscience 
which  is  the  pivot  of  the  world's  tragedy,  and  there- 
fore, the  world's  destiny.  You  cannot  sound  the 
great  literature  of  the  world,  the  great  transcripts  of 
man's  moral  soul,  without  realizing  that  the  Pauline 
issues  are  the  marrow  of  the  great  literature  of  the 
world.  What  moral  realism  finds  at  the  dregs  of 
life  is  guilt.  And  as  yet  the  only  effectual  secret 
of  guilt's  treatment  is  the  Cross.  The  reality  of 
life  is  Christ — and  not  Christ's  beauty,  pity,  or 
self-sacrifice,  but  His  love  as  God's  holy  grace. 
His  moral  mercy,   moral  judgment,    moral  atone- 


1 88  The  Preacher  and 

ment,  and  moral  victory  of  redemption.  To  that 
we  must  return,  if  all  the  world  go  on  and  leave 
us.  And  not  only  so,  but  we  preachers  must  steep 
our  soul  in  that,  till  we  become  charged  with 
the  one  power  to  which  men  bow  at  last, 
Christ's  conquest  of  the  whole  crisis  of  man's 
moral  situation.  His  power  to  redeem,  and  His 
authority  to  forgive.  The  pulpit  has  lost  authority 
because  it  has  lost  intimacy  with  the  Cross,  immer- 
sion in  the  Cross.  It  has  robbed  Christ  of  Paul. 
But  that  Church  will  be  the  ruling  Church  which 
most  frees  man's  conscience, — not  his  thought, 
or  his  theology,  but  his  conscience — and  which 
carries  in  it  most  of  the  power  to  forgive  and  absolve. 
Only  with  this  Gospel,  authoritative  because  evan- 
gelical, can  we  make  the  spiritual  life  a  world  power, 
take  it  out  of  comers  and  coteries,  give  it  control  of 
the  world  and  its  resources,  and  save  it  from  convent, 
conventicle,  and  college  aHke,  to  be  ecumenical,  prac- 
tical, and  final.  Our  lack  of  authority  is  mainly  due 
to  our  lack  of  piercing  moral  reahsm,  the  radicalism 
of  the  Cross.  It  is  a  power  which  goes  not  out  and 
comes  not  home  except  by  prayer,  laborious  prayer 
as  the  concentration  of  mind  and  will.  "  The  truth 
is  not  with  the  right,  nor  with  the  left,  nor  in  the 
middle,  but  in  the  heights."  The  secret  of  spiritual 
realism  is  personal  judgment,  personal  pardon, 
and  personal  prayer — prayer  as  conflict  and  wrestling 
with  God,  not  simply  as  sunning  one's  self  in  God. 
There  is  no  reahty  without  wrestling,  as  without 
shedding  of  blood  there  is  no  remission.     If  you 


Religious   Reality  189 

are  not  called  to  wrestle  it  is  only  because  the 
wrestling  is  being  done  for  you.  Somewhere  it  must 
be  done,  and  we  must  do  more  than  watch  it.  And 
for  the  preacher  it  is  only  serious  searching  prayer, 
not  prayer  as  sweet  and  seemly  devotion  at  the 
day's  dawn  or  close,  but  prayer  as  an  ingredient 
of  the  day's  work,  pastoral  and  theological  prayer, 
priest's  prayer — it  is  only  such  prayer  that  can  save 
the  preacher  from  histrionics  and  sentiment,  flat 
fluency,  and  that  familiarity  with  things  holy  which 
is  the  very  Satan  to  so  many  forward  apostles. 


I  speak  to  and  of  the  ministry,  which  is  at  once 
GUI  despair  and  our  hope.  If  the  preachers  have 
brought  preaching  down  it  is  the  preachers  that 
must  save  it.  The  Church  will  be  what  its  ministers 
make  it.  A  Church  of  faith  like  Protestantism 
must  always  be  what  its  chief  believers  make  it. 
And  these  foremost  and  formative  believers  are 
the  ministers.  The  real  archbishops  are  the  arch- 
believers.  If  a  Church  has  not  its  chief  behevers 
in  the  pulpit  it  is  unfortunate.  And  if  a  whole 
denomination  of  Churches  fail  in  this  matter  there 
is  something  fatally  wrong.  The  ministers  are  in  idea 
the  experts  in  faith.  They  are  the  elite  of  prayer.  If 
the  Church  is  to  be  saved  from  the  world  it  is  the 
ministers  that  must  do  it.  And  how  can  they  do  it 
but  as  men  pre-eminently  saved  from  the  world.  And 
no  man  has  the  seal  of  that  salvation  on  him  except 
by  action — by  thought  and  prayer  which  become 


190  The  Preacher  and 

moral  action.  A  man  has  the  stamp  of  supernatural 
reahty  upon  him  only  by  such  prayer.  If  another 
than  the  minister  carry  that  stamp  in  any  Church 
he  is  its  true  minister.  The  true  minister,  in  the 
pulpit  or  out,  does  all  his  business  in  the  spirit 
of  this  prayer.  The  man  of  commerce  may  say 
he  cannot,  I  will  not  argue  that  now.  I  will 
only  say  that  the  minister  has  this  advantage — 
he  not  only  can  but  he  must,  if  he  know  his  business, 
and  is  to  keep  it  going.  And  no  man  ought  to  take 
up  this  business  unless  he  know  it.  A  preacher 
whose  chief  power  is  not  in  studious  prayer  is,  to  that 
extent,  a  man  who  does  not  know  his  business.  A 
stringent  ethic  would  say  he  was  in  danger  of 
becoming  a  quack.  That  of  prayer  is  the  minis- 
ter's business.  He  cannot  be  a  sound  preacher 
unless  he  is  a  priest.  Prayer  of  the  serious,  evan- 
gelical, unceasing  sort  is  to  faith  what  original 
research  is  for  science — it  is  the  grand  means  of 
contact  with  reality.  It  is  the  soul's  fruitful  contact 
with  that  which  for  the  soul  is  Nature — God  in 
Christ.  It  founds  us  there  upon  the  rock,  and  with- 
stands the  gates  of  hell.  The  religious  life,  the 
hfe  which  has  religion  for  a  profession,  is  the 
most  dangerous  of  all.  There  are  so  many  tempta- 
tions to  unreality  in  it — especially  in  connexion 
with  what  is  sometimes  called  the  deepening  of  the 
spiritual  life.  The  bane  of  much  sanctity  is  its 
unreality.  I  do  not  mean  its  insincerity,  so  much  as  its 
lack  of  contact  with  world-reality,  moral,  historic 
reality.     Our  great  peril  is  not  the  coarse  hypocrisy, 


Religious  Reality  191 

which  the  common  critic  can  see  and  scourge  amid 
cheers.  It  is  the  subtler,  deadher  unreaUty  which 
may  settle  upon  the  executioner  of  hypocrisy,  which 
is  hidden  even  from  ourselves,  hidden  by  our  very 
peace  of  mind,  or  hidden  by  the  cheers,  hidden,  it 
may  be,  by  our  very  well-doing.  It  is  not  the 
amusing  hypocrisy  of  Mr.  Pecksniff  but  the  alarm- 
ing hypocrisy  of  Mr.  Bulstrode,  so  much  more 
terrible  because  more  true  to  actual  life,  because 
it  waits  for  us  at  our  own  door.  The  preacher  feels 
the  full  force  of  these  temptations.  At  least  he 
receives  their  full  force,  whether  he  always  feel  it 
or  not,  from  his  exposed  position.  He  is  a  dealer  in 
words  ;  and  it  is  very  hard  to  keep  them  full  of  the 
Spirit,  and  yet  to  keep  himself  their  master.  He  is 
a  popular  leader  ;  and  it  is  hard  to  lead  the  people 
without  being  led  by  the  people  to  yield  to  them. 
The  winning  of  souls,  or  the  leading  of  souls,  often 
costs  the  soul.  A  man  can  be  popular  and  real 
both,  especially  as  a  preacher.  I  do  not  know  of  any 
line  of  life  in  which  the  combination  is  more  possi- 
ble. But  to  continue  to  be  popular  and  also  to  be 
real  depends  on  much.  And  then  the  preacher 
has  the  sophistries  of  his  own  egoism,  the  egoism 
even  of  his  own  conscience,  the  seductions  of  his 
own  vanity,  and  the  insincerities  of  his  own  heart, 
which  are  always  most  dangerous  in  the  guise  of 
piety.  Some  preachers  appear  to  have  no  humilia- 
tion, confession,  penance,  or  absolution  in  their 
soul's  habit  or  history.  Ephraim  is  a  heifer  unbroken 
to  the  yoke.      Many  a  fervent  prayer  in  the  pulpit, 


192  The  Preacher  and 

and  many  a  thrilling  sermon,  has  but  deepened  the 
perdition  of  the  unreal  soul  that  uttered  it — heartfelt 
though  it  was  for  the  hour.  Against  such  things 
private  searching  prayer,  prayer  much  alone  with 
the  Judge  of  the  Pharisees,  is  the  corrective — prayer 
whose  keynote  is  the  Bible,  however  its  motives  may 
be  the  experiences  of  the  soul.  It  is  better  and 
safer  to  pray  over  the  Bible  than  to  brood  over  self. 
And  the  prayer  which  is  stirred  by  the  Cross  is 
hoher  even  then  that  which  arises  from  the  guilt 
that  drives  us  to  the  Cross.  What  really  searches 
us  is  neither  our  own  introspection,  nor  God's  law, 
but  it  is  God's  Gospel,  as  it  pierces  us  from  the  merci- 
less mercy  of  the  Cross  and  the  Son  unspared  for  us. 

§ 

3.  The  third  vice  of  the  Christian  hour  is  spiritual 
self-satisfaction,  well-to-do-ness,  comfort.  The  voice 
of  the  turtle  is  heard  in  the  land. 

This  is  the  religious  counterpart  of  that  intellectual 
self-sufficiency  in  many  sections  of  science,  where 
men  are  quite  sure  they  have,  in  the  experience  that 
deals  so  successfully  with  parts,  a  key  to  the  infinite 
whole.  Their  science  gives  them  a  closed  scheme 
of  all  existence,  which  only  needs  filling  in  with 
discovery  or  filling  out  with  invention.  They  do 
not  realize  that  the  knowledge  of  a  world,  a  whole, 
is  a  knowledge  by  faith  and  not  by  science.  None 
has  ever  seen  or  realized  a  whole  world  by  any 
scientific  experience,  only  by  an  act  of  faith.  The 
more  we  know  things  or  men  the  less   we  under- 


Religious   Reality  193 

stand  them  till  faith  explains  them  by  their  goal. 
We  see  not  yet  all  things,  but  we  see  Jesus. 

Such  also,  in  its  way,  is  the  self-satisfaction 
of  so  much  naive  religion,  denominationalism,  or 
Churchmanship,  the  religion  of  the  plain  man  who  is 
always  saying  he  is  Davus  and  not  Edipus,  who 
hates  riddles,  and  who  talks  to  you  of  his  sectional 
interests  or  idols  as  if  they  must  be  of  equal 
interest  and  volume  to  all  the  world. 

"  Who  takes  the  murmur  of  his  little  burg 
For  all  the  mighty  music  of  the  world." 

We  Hve  too  happily  on  the  middle  register.  It 
is  all  so  interesting — the  day's  doings,  the  vivid  world, 
the  Church,  the  Bible,  the  meetings,  the  movements, 
the  singing,  the  preaching,  the  books,  the  reviews,  the 
music,  the  marrying,  the  giving  in  marriage.  We 
enjoy  the  long  picnic,  by  the  still  waters,  in  com- 
panies upon  the  green  grass.  The  flood,  indeed,  is 
already  in  the  hills,  and  trained  and  gifted  ears  hear 
it,  and  give  the  alarm.  And  yet  we  sit  down  easily 
and  agreeably  beside  the  modern  man,  with  his 
mixture  of  refined  materialism  and  scrappy  culture, 
to  whom  religion  is  but  a  phase  of  his  general 
interests,  or  the  key-stone  of  the  social  arch. 
Religion  is  to-day  debased  to  a  mere  means  of 
human  happiness,  to  a  social  utility,  as  it  never 
was  before.  It  was  once  a  poHtical  pawn,  it  is 
now  a  social  facility.  And  the  result  is  unfaith, 
or,  worse,  an  affectation  of  faith.  We  are  so 
healthy,    so   poetical,   so    kindly,     so    optimistic. 


194  The   Preacher  and 

God's  love  and  patience  and  mercy  are  all  so  much 
in  line  with  life's  innocent  charm,  all  so  much  a 
matter  of  course  and  of  congratulation.  And  we 
are  so  strange  to  heart-hunger,  or  soul-despair, 
or  passionate  gratitude,  or  heavenly  home-sickness. 
Whole  tracts  of  our  religion  are  bare  of  spiritual 
passion,  or  spiritual  depth.  Christianity  speaks  the  • 
language  of  our  humane  civilization  ;  it  does  not 
speak  the  language  of  Christ.  The  age,  and  much 
of  the  Church,  believes  in  civilization  and  is  inter- 
ested in  the  Gospel,  instead  of  believing  in  the 
Gospel  and  being  interested  in  civilization.  And 
we  treat  as  fanatics  those  who  tell  us  that  there  is 
no  reconciliation  possible  between  the  Cross  and 
culture,  when  each  knows  its  own  mind,  except  as 
culture  itself  submits  to  be  redeemed.  As  if 
Christ  did  not  come  to  redeem  us  not  from  sin  only, 
nor  from  worldliness,  but  from  the  world. 

I  once  addressed  a  meeting  of  ministers  on  the 
necessity  of  the  evangehcal  consciousness,  by  which 
I  meant  the  central  or  even  daily  life  of  forgive- 
ness, repentance,  humiliation,  and  their  fruits,  in 
contrast  with  what  is  vaguely  known  as  the 
Christian  spirit.  And  I  created  a  good  deal  of 
bewilderment.  For  one  of  them  came  to  me 
afterwards,  and  asked  me  if  he  had  understood 
me  right,  as,  to  his  knowledge,  the  experience 
was  one  that  few  ministers  possessed.  If  that  was 
so  I  need  not  say  another-word  to  account  for  the 
loss  of  pulpit  power  and  authority.  It  is  not  more 
religion  we  need  so  much  as  a  better  order  of  religion, 


Religious   Reality  195 

and  a  more  serious  idea  of  the  soul,  its  sin  and  its 
salvation. 

For  an  ill  like  this  there  is  but  one  cure.  It  is 
a  deeper,  daily,  though  perhaps  reserved  sense,  not 
only  of  our  unworthiness,  but  of  our  perdition 
except  for  the  Grace  of  Christ,  the  mercy  of  the 
Cross.  And  this  deepened  sense  will  not  come. 
It  must  be  sought,  courted,  entreated.  The 
deepening  of  personal  religion  !  It  is  something 
much  more  that  we  need.  We  need  the  humili- 
ation in  which  we  forget  about  religion,  the 
faith  in  which  we  forget  about  either  faith  or 
works,  the  sanctity  that  has  no  knowledge  of  its 
own  holiness.  We  need  an  experience  of  Christ 
in  which  we  think  everything  about  the  Christ 
and  not  about  the  experience.  We  need  that 
preachers  shall  not  keep  demanding  either  a  faith 
or  love  that  we  cannot  rise  to,  but  shall  preach  a 
Christ  that  produces  and  compels  both.  And  we 
need  that  the  Christ  we  preach  shall  not  be  our 
brother,  ideal,  or  King  only,  but  also  our  judge. 
Nay  we  read  that  He  is  chiefly  our  judge,  because 
He  took  our  judgment  on  Him  for  our  redemption. 
Every  great  revival  in  the  Church  has  gone  with  a 
new  sense  of  Christ's  vicarious  redemption,  and 
not  merely  with  a  new  wave  of  pity.  Our  great 
need  is  not  ardour  to  save  man  but  courage  to  face 
God — courage  to  face  God  with  our  soul  as  it  is,  and 
with  our  Saviour  as  He  is  ;  to  face  God  always  thus, 
and  so  to  win  the  power  which  saves  and  serves 
man  more  than  any  other  power  can.     We  can  never 


196   Preacher  and  Religious  Reality 

fully  say  "  My  brother !  "  till  we  have  heartily 
said  "  My  God  ; "  and  we  can  never  heartily  say 
"  My  God  "  till  we  have  humbly  said  "  My  Guilt  !  " 
That  is  the  root  of  moral  reality,  of  personal 
religion,  and  social  security.  It  is  only  thus  that 
we  really  meet  the  passion  for  reality,  which  is  so 
hopeful  a  feature  of  modem  time,  because  it  is 
the  ruling  passion  of  a  Holy  God. 


PREACHING  POSITIVE    AND 
LIBERAL 


VI 

Preaching    Positive   and    Liberal 

The  first  requisite  for  a  Christian  man  is  faith. 
That  is  what  makes  a  soul  a  member  of  Christ  and  of 
the  true  Church — the  faith  that  works  and  blossoms 
out  into  love.  Being  faith  in  Christ,  how  could  it 
but  work  and  flower  out  into  love  ?  The  fact  that  so 
often  it  does  not  must  mean  that  in  so  many  cases 
it  is  not  really  faith,  or  not  faith  in  Christ.  It  is 
not  personal  contact  and  commerce  with  Him. 
This  faith  it  is  that  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world, 
having  in  it  all  the  promise  and  potency  of  love, 
godliness,  peace,  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  It  is 
such  living  faith  that  makes  a  man  a  Christian. 

But  among  Christians  the  preacher  stands  out 
in  a  special  place  and  work.  And  the  first  requisite 
for  the  ministry  of  a  Church  is  a  theology,  a  faith 
which  knows  what  it  is  about,  a  positive  faith,  faith 
with  not  only  an  experience  but  a  content,  not  glow 
only  but  grasp,  and  mass,  and  measure.  The  preacher 
who  is  but  feeling  his  way  to  a  theology  is  but 
preparing  to  be  a  preacher,  however  eloquent  he 
may  have  become.  He  may  be  no  more  than  "  the 
hierophant  of  an  unapprehended  inspiration."   And 

199 


::oo   Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

that  kind  of  inspiration  may  be  mantic  or  romantic, 
bat  it  is  neither  propiietic  nor  apostolic.  The  faith 
which  makes  a  man  a  Christian  must  go  on  in  the 
preacher  to  be  a  theology.  He  cannot  afford  to  live 
on  in  a  fides  non  formata.  A  viscous  unreflecting 
faith  is  for  the  preacher  a  faith  without  footing  and 
therefore  without  authority.  In  special  cases  it 
may  have  a  certain  infection  about  it,  but  it  has 
not  authority.  Yet  it  is  authority  that  the 
world  chiefly  needs  and  the  preaching  of  the 
hour  lacks — an  authoritative  Gospel  in  a  humble 
personality.  And  for  authority,  for  weight,  we  need 
experience  indeed,  but,  still  more,  positive  faith. 

It  is  but  a  little  way  that  experience  will  carry 
the  herald  of  the  Gospel.  He  has  to  expound  a 
message  which,  because  it  is  eternal,  far  transcends 
his  experience.  He  has  to  do  more  than  set  to 
his  own  personal  seal.  Every  Christian  has  to  do 
that.  The  preacher  has  to  be  sure  of  a  knowledge 
that  creates  experience,  and  does  not  rise  out  of  it. 
His  burthen  is  something  given,  something  that 
reports  a  world  beyond  experience,  a  world  that  is  not 
of  experience,  though  always  in  its  shape.  Experi- 
ence is  but  in  part,  yet  he  has  to  dogmatize  about 
the  whole.  He  has  to  be  sure  of  what  ever  is,  and 
evermore  shall  be.  Experience  is  in  time,  and  he 
has  to  be  positive  about  eternity.  His  experience 
covers  but  his  own  soul,  or  at  most  a  few  besides 
that  he  touches  ;  yet  he  has  to  declare  a  certainty 
about  the  eternal  destiny  of  the  whole  world,  and 
the  eternal  will  of  the  whole  God.    That  is  a  know- 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal   201 

ledge  far  beyond  experience.  It  is  not  realiz- 
able except  in  experience,  but  experience  could  not 
reach  it,  could  not  assure  it.  It  is  a  knowledge  that 
comes  by  faith.  Wherever  you  have  a  universe 
you  have  something  beyond  experience,  and  acces- 
sible only  to  faith.  Experience  is  not  the  only 
organ  of  knowledge,  however  it  may  be  a  condition. 
Experience  deals  with  but  the  one,  or  the  several ; 
faith  deals  with  a  whole  ;  for  it  deals  with  God, 
eternity  and  the  world  ;  it  deals  with  a  reality  of 
the  whole,  which  we  experience  but  in  a  measure. 
There  is  a  knowledge  by  faith  as  sound  of  its  kind  as 
the  knowledge  by  experience,  by  science  ;  and  its 
kind  is  much  higher,  deeper,  more  momentous. 
It  is  the  knowledge  of  a  person  in  his  purpose,  not 
of  a  thing  and  its  features,  not  of  a  force  and  its 
laws.  It  is  not  simply  faith  as  a  personal  experi- 
ence that  is  the  burthen  of  the  preacher,  but  faith 
as  a  knowledge,  the  inner  objective  content  of 
faith,  the  thing  in  faith  which  always  creates  the 
experience  of  it ;  in  a  word,  the  person,  will,  and 
action  of  God  in  Christ.  It  is  there,  in  the  objective 
personal  content  of  faith,  and  not  in  the  subject- 
ive personal  experience,  that  the  authority  of  the 
preacher  lies.  His  experience  may  make  him 
impressive  at  times,  but  it  is  his  faith  that  gives 
him  permanent  power.  That  power  really  lies  not 
in  the  preacher  but  in  his  Gospel,  in  his  theology. 
For  the  preacher  it  is  most  true  that  his  theology 
is  an  essential,  perhaps  the  essential,  part  of  his 
religion.  He  may  be  quite  unfit  to  lecture  in  theology 


2  02    Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

as  a  science,  but  he  is  the  less  of  a  preacher,  how- 
ever fine  a  speaker,  if  he  have  not  a  theology  at  the 
root  of  his  preaching  and  its  sap  circulating  in  it. 
And  if  he  is  a  pastor,  producing  his  effect  not  by 
a  few  addresses  but  by  a  cumulative  ministry,  all 
this  is  still  more  true. 


The  first  requirement  of  the  ministry,  then,  is  a 
positive  theology.  But  by  that  I  do  not  mean  a  highly 
systematic  theology,  nor  an  orthodox  theology. 
For  a  systematic  theology  easily  becomes  doctrinaire, 
and  an  orthodoxy  soon  becomes  obsolete.  It  were, 
well  to  banish  antiquated  words  like  orthodoxy 
and  heterodoxy  as  anything  but  historical  terms. 
They  belong  to  an  out-grown  age,  when  a  formal 
theology  had  a  direct  saving  value  for  the  individual 
soul ;  when  there  was  but  one  true  theology  instead 
of  many,  as  there  was  but  one  true  Church  ;  when 
there  was  an  external  authority,  to  make  a  standard, 
in  an  inerrant  Bible,  a  final  confession,  or  an 
infallible  Pope.  The  one  orthodox  Church,  the 
Greek  Church  is  the  deadest  of  all  the  Churches. 
And  we  should  have  been  as  dead  if  orthodoxy  had 
had  its  way  with  the  West  as  it  had  with  the  East. 
For  at  its  worst  it  is  mere  conformity  ;  and  at  its 
best  it  is  the  regime  of  intellectualism.  It  reduces 
religion  to  an  intellectualism  with  a  divine  charter. 
And  its  reaction  in  heterodoxy  is  natural,  equal, 
and  opposite.  Both  are  intellectualist  and  theo- 
sophic.    Let  us  consider  the  words,  therefore,  as 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal    203 

archaic  and  defunct  for  faith.  And  instead  of 
speaking  or  thinking  about  an  orthodox  theology, 
which  is  canned  theology  gone  stale,  let  us  think 
of  a  positive  theology  which  is  theology  alive,  alert, 
and  in  power. 

§ 

Again,  by  a  positive  theology  I  mean  naturally 
the  opposite  of  a  negative.  But  when  is  a  theology 
negative  ?  Negative  of  what  ?  Negative  of  a 
tradition  ?  No,  of  a  power.  Negative  of  the 
Gospel.  A  positive  theology  is  an  evangelical 
theology.  Positivity  in  this  connexion  has  a 
chief  reference  to  what  I  have  often  to  describe  as  the 
primacy  of  the  will.  It  is  moral ;  but  moral  in  a  far 
higher  sense  than  a  mere  imperative — moral  as  being 
not  diffused  in  an  idea  or  organized  in  thought,  but 
concentrated  in  a  personal  act,  in  redemption.  The 
love  manifested  by  Christ  in  His  life  was  positive 
in  the  sense  that  it  was  not  merely  affectional  but 
rational  and  moral.  That  is  to  say  its  great  features 
were  first  that  it  understood  the  total  situation — 
so  far  it  was  rational — and  second  that  it  condensed 
into  one  definite  practical  purpose — it  was  saving 
and  moral.  It  understood  God  uniquely  ;  no  man 
knoweth  the  Father  but  the  Son.  It  understood 
man  to  his  moral  centre,  and  needed  that  no  man 
should  tell  it  what  was  in  man.  And  it  was  concen- 
trated into  crucial  action  both  on  God  and  on  man. 
It  was  decisive  and  redemptive.  Positive  means 
moral  in  the  great  evangelical  sense.   That  is  to  say, 


2  04   Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

in  the  first  place,  it  means  that  the  supreme  form 
of  God's  love  was  a  real  act,  central  in  history  and 
critical  for  eternity.  It  was  a  holy  life  not  simply 
in  the  sense  of  being  spotless  but  in  the  sense  of 
being  one  vast  moral  deed,  one  absolute  achievement 
of  conscience,  affecting  the  being  both  of  God  and 
man  and  the  whole  spiritual  world.  It  was  not 
merely  impressionist.  It  was  not  an  influence  bul 
an  act,  not  a  fresh  stimulus  but  a  new  creation, 
not  a  career  opened  for  the  race  but  a  finished 
thing.  Holiness  has  no  meaning  apart  from  an  act 
into  which  is  put  a  whole  moral  person  ;  and  if  there 
be  an  eternal  person  it  is  an  eternal  act,  and  not 
merely  a  past  event,  or  the  attribute  of  an  eternal 
being,  or  an  infinite  presence,  as  the  mystics  dream. 
Accordingly,  in  the  second  place,  God's  gift  was  an 
eternal  life,  something  beyond  natural  goodness, 
however  good,  and  however  refined.  For  what  is 
morality,  when  we  are  at  the  height  to  which  we  have 
now  come  ?  It  is  not  a  mere  obedience.  That  were 
in  the  end  but  some  kind  of  Pharisaism,  of  which  in- 
deed Protestantism  has  been  greatly  the  victim.  No 
1  comphance  with  a  mere  law  or  creed,  however  good 
j  or  fine  makes  a  moral  action.  Morality  is  the  expres- 
I  sion  of  our  personality  ;  and  to  grow  moral  means  to 
grow  in  personality,  and  not  merely  in  a  certain  exer- 
cise of  personality.  It  is  our  creative  action.  It  is 
the  soul  co-operating  with  the  holy  energy  of  God 
and  fulfilling  its  redeemed  destiny.  To  live  in  the 
Spirit  is  not  simply  to  walk  in  the  light.  The  Spirit 
is  creative  energy  ;    and  to  live  in  the  Spirit  is  to 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal   205 

exercise  this  energy.  It  is  eternal  life  in  its  count- 
less concrete  forms  of  actuality,  experience,  and 
history — in  worship,  art,  science,  politics,  in  Church, 
State,  or  family.  Positive  Christianity  then  is 
Christianity  which  recognizes  the  primacy  of  the 
moral  in  the  shape  of  life,  and  of  holy  life.  It  is 
Christianity  which  first  adjusts  man  to  the  holy  and 
then  creates  the  holy  in  man,  and  does  both  through 
the  Cross  with  its  atoning  gift  of  eternal  life.  It  is 
evangehcal  Christianity — Christianity  not  as  a  creed 
nor  as  a  process  but  as  a  Holy  Spirit's  energy  and 
act,  issuing  always  from  the  central  act  and  achieve- 
ment of  God  and  of  history  in  the  Cross  of  Christ. 

But  the  name  of  evangehcal  theology  has  often 
been  monopolized  by  a  theology  which  has  not 
really  escaped  from  the  idea  of  orthodoxy,  a  theology 
not  only  elaborate  but  final,  irrevisable,  and  there- 
fore obscurantist,  and  therefore  robbed  of  pubhc 
power.  By  an  evangelical  theology  I  mean  any 
theology  which  does  full  justice  to  the  one  creative 
principle  of  grace.  Any  theology  is  evangehcal  which 
does  that.  A  theology  is  not  evangelical  by  its 
conclusions  but  by  its  principles,  not  by  its  clauses 
and  statements,  not  by  its  spirit  or  temper,  but  by 
the  Holy  Spirit  of  grace  and  power.  It  is  the  state- 
ment of  a  Gospel  of  Grace,  it  is  not  the  scientific 
explication  of  that  Gospel's  corollaries  and  implicates. 

§ 

Some  forms  of  evangelical  theology  are  too  fond 
of  describing  a  critical  theology  as  negative.     I  do 


2o6   Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

not  like  the  word  negative.  There  is  a  certain 
unpleasant  suggestion  in  it  which  we  should  avoid. 
I  would  rather  use  the  more  correct  and  current 
antithesis  of  positive,  and  say  liberal.  Here  again, 
however,  we  are  in  difficulties.  For  in  the  first  place 
if  what  we  oppose  is  liberal,  are  we  not  illiberal  in 
opposing  it  ?  And  is  there  not  an  unpleasant  sug- 
gestion in  that  ?  And  in  the  next  place,  if  we  follow 
current  use  and  say  hberal  as  the  antithesis  of  posi- 
tive, do  we  mean  that  a  positive  theology  is  only 
conservative  and  incapable  of  modification  with 
time  to  meet  the  progress  of  thought  and  know- 
ledge ?  The  answer  to  that,  of  course,  is  that  a 
confession  of  faith  not  only  can  be,  but  must  be 
modified  in  this  way.  The  creed  must  take  the 
expression  which  gives  the  best  effect  at  the  time  to 
the  grace  which  creates  it.  In  this  regard  it  reflects 
the  almighty  power  of  God  which  (if  Christ  be  His 
revelation)  is  chiefly  shown  in  His  capacity  for  any 
self-hmitation  needful  to  give  effect  to  His  holy 
will  of  grace  and  love  at  a  particular  juncture. 
Theological  form  must  be  adjustable.  The  old  faith 
demands  a  new  theology.  For,  in  the  first  place,  its 
nature  does,  and  in  the  second,  its  history. 

First,  its  nature  does.  Christ,  as  the  standing 
object  of  our  faith,  is  the  meeting-point  of  changeless 
eternity,  and  changing  history.  In  Him  the  eternal 
emerges  at  a  fleeting  point.  But,  if  He  is  the  same 
yesterday,  to-day,  and  for  ever,  this  final  utterance 
must  be  expressible  at  every  other  such  point. 
His  eternal   revelation    is   vocal   and   relevant    for 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal    207 

every  age.  The  changeless  Gospel  must  speak 
with  equal  facility  the  language  of  each  new  time, 
as  well  as  of  each  far  land.  If  it  be  missionary 
to  every  soul  it  is  also  missionary  to  the  whole  soul 
of  history.  There  is  an  ironic,  socratic  docility  in  the 
everlasting  Gospel.  It  must  be  flexible  if  it  is  to 
search  and  permeate.  It  must  be  tractable  and 
reasonable  because  it  is  so  supreme  and  sure.  It 
must  have  the  power  to  vary,  and  to  meet  the 
forms  of  thought  and  hfe  which  it  does  so  much 
to  produce.  We  could  never  preach  to  the  time  if 
our  Gospel  had  but  a  lapidary  and  monumental 
eternity.      Remember  Lot's  wife. 

There  must  be  such  a  thing  as  a  history  of  Chris- 
tianity, not  merely  a  history  of  the  effects  of  Chris- 
tian doctrine  in  the  world.  That  doctrine  is  not  a 
rock  in  a  stream.  The  religion  itself  must  have  an 
elasticity  of  its  own,  a  variableness  and  adaptability 
which  do  not  alter  its  substance.  It  is  not  like  a 
philosophic  system  which  cannot  reappear  in  a 
modified  form,  but  can  only  be  replaced  by  another 
system.  Christianity  must  modify,  for  it  is  not  a 
fixed  quantity  cut  and  dried.  It  has  no  existence 
outside  of  the  life  and  the  will  of  moving  man. 
Therefore  while  it  has  a  continuity  it  has  also  a 
history  and  not  a  mere  persistence.  No  otherwise  is 
it  a  living  potent  religion.  Only  the  lowest  religions, 
like  the  lowest  races  and  creatures,  are  without 
a  history.  And  Christianity  has  a  history  because 
it  is  under  the  constant  renewing  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
It  is  a  new  and  independent  power  of  life  within  the 


2  o  8    Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

stream  of  time.  It  is  not  a  mere  section  of  civili- 
zation. And  its  history  has  a  unity  quite  different 
from  the  development  of  religion  in  general.  It  is 
not  simply  a  limb  in  the  organism  of  spiritual 
evolution. 

In  the  second  place,  the  history  of  the  old  faith 
demands  a  re-interpretation  of  theology,  even  if 
we  may  not  say  a  revision.  For  I  have  already 
noted  how  the  greatest  Apostles  and  fathers  of  the 
Church  translated  the  Gospel  into  the  current  mind. 
And  I  note  farther  that  in  history  fixed  and  final 
dogma  constantly  tends  to  produce  a  type  of  life 
quite  other  than  that  produced  by  the  old  faith. 
Where  you  fix  a  creed  you  flatten  faith.  Where 
dogma  is  idoHzed,  life  is  sterilized.  Where  you 
canonise  a  system  you  demoralize  men.  But 
the  effect  of  the  faith  of  the  Gospel  is  entirely 
the  other  way.  It  rouses,  exalts,  kindles  men. 
A  fixed  and  final  system  is  therefore  incompatible 
with  the  genius  of  the  Gospel.  That  is  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  Reformation.  Living  faith  means 
growing  form.  Orthodoxy,  Catholicism,  in  differ- 
ent degrees  tend  to  petrify  life.  Therefore  they 
lose  the  power  of  the  Gospel,  no  matter  what  the 
amount  of  zeal  may  be.  Dogma  is  not  an  end  in 
itself.  And  even  doctrine  is  but  the  expression  of 
life,  it  is  not  the  life  indeed. 

The  old  faith  of  the  Gospel,  therefore,  is  not 
merely  patient  of  new  form,  a  new  theology,  but  it 
demands  it.  It  produces  it.  It  fits  itself  in  a  masterly 
way  to  the  shape  and  pressure  of  the  time,  unless 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal   209 

we  prevent  it.  The  very  power  of  its  eternity,  its 
supernatural  power,  shows  itself  in  this,  that  it  uses 
time  and  is  not  left  behind.  What  is  eternity  but 
the  soul's  command  of  time  ? 

§ 
But,  if  a  positive  Gospel  thus  asserts  its  positivity 
by  irrepressible  adjustment,  why  should  we  set  in 
opposition  positive  and  liberal.  Well,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  theological  liberalism  has  tended  to  destroy 
positive  behef,  distinctive  experience,  and  aggressive 
Christianity.  But  perhaps  the  terms  are  not  happy. 
Still  there  they  are  in  use.  They  are  part  of  the 
accepted  language  of  the  discussion.  And  the  word 
which  is  employed  to  express  the  adjustments 
native  to  a  positive  Gospel  is  not  "  liberal "  but  - 
"  modem."  A  modem  theology  is  one  thing,  theo- 
logical liberalism  is  another.  Ritschl  represents 
one  Gospel,  Pfleiderer  another.  And  they  are  dis- 
parate and  incompatible.  Paul  and  Luther  cannot 
dwell  with  Hegel.  The  one  is  a  function  of 
faith,  the  other  is  a  school  of  thought.  I  am 
not  pleading  for  the  terms.  I  am  simply  accept- 
ing them.  They  cover  distinct  things.  It  is  the 
things  I  wish  to  distinguish.  And  I  do  so  in  the 
course  of  an  attempt  to  make  good  my  case  that 
a  positive  and  modem  theology  is  a  first  requisite 
for  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel.  Of  the  Gospel,  note. 
For  the  first  requisite  for  a  mere  preacher  is  a  tem- 
perament. And  a  temperament  without  a  Gospel 
is  more  of  a  bane  than  a  blessing  to  a  public  man. 
The  more  of  a  temperament  a  preacher  has  the  more 


2  10   Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

he  needs  a  positive  Gospel  to  carry  it,  and  save  it 
from  shipwreck.  Of  course,  I  imply  by  my  words 
that  what  is  called  liberal  theology,  as  distinct  from 
theology  modem  and  positive,  works  on  the  whole 
against  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel,  and  becomes 
little  more  than  an  enlightened  Judaism. 

I  may  here  anticipate  what  I  go  on  to  say  later 
by  explaining  in  brief  that  by  liberalism  I  mean  the 
theology  that  begins  with  some  rational  canon  of 
life  or  nature  to  which  Christianity  has  to  be  cut 
down  or  enlarged  (as  the  case  may  be)  ;  while  by  a 
modem  positivity  I  mean  a  theology  that  begins 
with  God's  gift  of  a  super-logical  revelation  in 
Christ's  historic  person  and  cross,  whose  object  was 
not  to  adjust  a  contradiction  but  to  resolve  a  crisis 
and  save  a  situation  of  the  human  soul.  For 
positive  theology  Christ  is  the  object  of  faith ;  for 
liberal  He  is  but  its  first  and  greatest  subject,  the 
agent  of  a  faith  directed  elsewhere  than  on  Him. 
It  is  really  an  infinite  difference.  For  only  one  side 
can  be  true. 

§ 

We  need,  for  our  pulpit  efficiency,  a  theology  that 
is  new  when  compared  with  catechismal  orthodoxy,  a 
restatement  of  doctrine  which  may  be  either ' '  modem ' ' 
or  "  liberal."  Now  which  does  the  Gospel  demand  ? 
What  is  the  difference  between  a  modernized 
positivity  and  hberalism,  as  I  have  defined  the 
terms  ? 

Let  me  name  some  vital  distinctions. 

I.  I   begin  with  the  most  essential.     The  post- 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal   211 

fivtty  of  the  GosPel  means  the  effectual  primacy  of 
the  given.  And  this  primacy  of  the  given  means 
two  things.  I  have  said  that  we  can  think  modem 
and  end  positive.  We  can  keep  abreast  of  both 
thought  and  knowledge  and  yet  emerge  with  the 
results  of  positive  faith.  We  can  still  believe  in 
the  primacy  of  the  given  in  these  two  aspects — 
first  in  respect  of  history  or  the  origin  of  our  reli- 
gion, second  in  respect  of  theology  or  the  nature  of 
our  religion. 

First,  in  respect  of  the  origin  of  our  religion,  when 
we  say  it  is  positive  we  mean  that  it  is  historical. 
The  revelation  is  not  primarily  in  my  soul  but  in  a 
fact  which  is  in  the  chain  of  history.  It  is  in  Christ 
and  His  Cross.  Positivity  means  therefore  in  the 
first  place  historicity.  It  opposes  a  religion  whose 
genius  is  thought  or  idea  instead  of  historic  event. 
Christianity  is  founded  in  the  historic  Jesus,  it  was 
not  merely  founded  by  Him.  In  Him  we  have  the 
revelation  and  not  merely  the  first  believer  in  the 
revelation.  And  in  Him,  in  that  historic  figure, 
is  the  final  and  absolute  revelation ;  He  is  not  a 
mere  stage  in  the  history  of  revelation.  His  religion 
is  not  simply  one  among  others  and  the  best  of 
them  all.  It  is  religion  in  the  final  sense  of  the 
word.  And  it  is  the  religion  that  believes  and 
worships  Him  ;  it  is  not  simply  religion  that  believes 
with  Him,  and  with  Him  worships  God. 

Second,  in  respect  of  the  nature  of  our  religion,  or 
its  theology,  positivity  as  the  primacy  of  the  given 
means  that  we  take  it  seriously  as  the  religion  of 


2  12    Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

grace.  The  Gospel  descends  on  man,  it  does  not 
rise  from  him.  It  is  not  a  projection  of  his  innate 
spirituahty.  It  is  revealed,  not  discovered,  not 
invented.  It  is  of  grace,  not  works.  It  is  conferred, 
not  attained.  It  is  a  gift  to  our  poverty,  not  a 
triumph  of  our  resource.  It  is  something  which 
holds  us,  it  is  not  something  that  we  hold.  It  is 
something  that  saves  us,  and  nothing  that  we  have 
to  save.  Its  Christ  is  a  Christ  sent  to  us  and  not 
developed  from  us,  bestowed  on  our  need  and  not 
produced  from  our  strength,  and  He  is  given  for  our 
sin  more  than  for  our  weakness. 

That  is  to  say,  the  first  feature  of  a  positive  Gospel 
is  that  it  is  a  Gospel  of  pure,  free  grace  to  human  sin. 
(And  you  will  find  that  liberalism  either  begins 
or  ends  with  ignoring  sin  or  minimising  it.)  The 
initiative  rests  entirely  with  God,  and  with  a  holy 
and  injured  God.  On  this  article  of  grace  the 
whole  of  Christianity  turns.  "  Christianity,"  says 
an  unfriendly  critic,  "  stands  or  falls  with  its  doc- 
trine of  forgiveness."  A  positive  theology  means  the 
doctrines  of  grace — brought  up  to  date  by  all  means, 
but  only  so  as  to  give  larger  scope  to  the  Gospel  of 
grace  than  to  the  claim  of  religious  culture. 

A  liberal  theology  has  most  to  say  of  God's  love, 
a  positive  of  God's  mercy.  The  one  views  God's 
love  chiefly  in  relation  to  human  love,  the  other 
chiefly  in  relation  to  human  sin.  In  relation  to 
sin  chiefly — because  a  positive  Gospel  is  a  reve- 
lation of  holy  love,  and  our  answer  to  it  is 
not   merely    affectional,   but    holy,  obedient,  and 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal   213 

worshipful.  If  the  great  revelation  of  God  is  in  the 
Cross,  and  the  great  gift  of  the  Cross  is  the  Holy 
Spirit,  then  the  revelation  is  holiness,  holiness  work- 
ing outward  as  love.  It  is  not  simply  sacred  love, 
as  it  comes,  for  most  people,  to  mean  ;  but  it  is 
holiness  working  out  into  love  on  God's  side,  as  our 
faith  does  on  our  side.  God's  love  is  the  outgoing 
of  his  holiness,  not  as  exigent  law,  but  as  redeeming 
grace,  bent  on  reclaiming  us,  all  bankrupt  and 
defiant,  to  his  fuU,  rich,  harmonious,  eternal  life. 
The  hohness  of  God  is  His  seH-sufficient  perfection, 
whose  passion  is  to  establish  itself  in  the  unholy  by 
gracious  love.  Holiness  is  love  morally  perfect ;  love 
is  hoUness  brimming  and  overflowing.  The  perfection 
speaks  in  the  overflow.  It  is  in  redemption.  Love  is 
perfect,  not  in  amount  but  in  kind,  not  as  intense  but 
as  holy.  And  holiness  is  perfect,  not  as  being  remote, 
nor  as  being  merely  pure,  but  as  it  asserts  itself  in 
redeeming  grace.  Love,  as  holy,  must  react  against 
sin  in  Atonement.  Holiness,  as  grace,  must  estabUsh 
itself  by  redemption  in  Satan's  Seat.  It  is  not  the 
obstacle  of  redemption  but  its  source  and  impulse. 
The  primacy  of  the  given,  then,  is  only  another 
way  of  expressing  the  final  authority  of  grace.  The 
question  of  the  hour,  for  all  Hfe,  and  not  only  for  the 
religious,  is  that  of  authority — the  true  effective 
authority.  Where  is  it  ?  At  the  last  it  is  here.  It 
is  in  God's  eternal,  perpetual  act  and  gift  of  grace,  met 
by  the  absolute  obedience  of  our  faith.  Faith  is  abso- 
lute obedience  to  grace  as  absolute  authority.  Per- 
sonal faith  in  the  holy,  gracious  God  of  Christ's 


2  14   Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

Cross  is  the  one  creative,  authoritative,  life-making, 
Ufe-giving,  life-shaping  power  of  the  moral  soul. 

Now  a  modernized  theology  is  not  only  compatible 
with  this  old  faith,  it  is  inevitable  to  it.  But  the 
liberal  theology,  as  I  am  describing  it,  is  fatal  to  the  old 
faith.  For  all  its  varieties  have  this  in  common. 
They  are  indifferent  to  a  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
It  is  this  doctrine  that  prevents  us  from  describing 
the  progress  of  Christianity  as  a  mere  spiritual 
process,  or  the  spread  of  a  movement.  Any  theology 
that  places  us  in  a  spiritual  process,  or  native  move- 
ment between  the  finite  and  the  infinite,  depreciates 
the  value  of  spiritual  act,  and  thus  makes  us  indepen- 
dent of  the  grace  of  God.  Its  movement  is  processional 
spectacular,  aesthestic,  it  is  not  historic,  dramatic, 
tragic  or  ethical.  If  it  speak  of  the  grace  of  God 
it  does  not  take  it  with  moral  seriousness.  It 
understands  by  God's  grace  no  more  than  the 
Idea  moving  to  transcend  our  error,  or  love 
acting  in  generosity,  or  in  pity.  It  reduces  mercy 
to  a  form  of  pity  by  abolishing  the  claim  of  hoH- 
ness,  the  gravity  of  sin,  and  the  action  of  an 
Atonement.  It  does  not  take  either  the  measure 
of  holiness  or  the  weight  of  sin.  It  makes  the  Cross 
not  necessary  but  valuable  ;  not  central  but  supple- 
mental ;  not  creative  but  exhibitive ;  a  demonstra- 
tion, but  not  a  revelation ;  a  reconciliation  but  not 
a  redemption.  It  makes  the  Church  a  company  of 
workers  and  not  believers,  the  brethren  of  Christ 
rather  than  His  flock  and  His  property,  a  genial 
body  rather  than  a  regenerate,  a  band  of  lovers  rather 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal   215 

than  of  penitents.     It  attenuates  the  Fatherhood 
which  it  softens.    It  interprets^it  as  His  creating  love. 
Now  God  the  Father  is  indeed  Creator,  but  it  is  not 
as  Creator  that  He  is  Father.     We  are  all  destined 
to  be  sons  of  God  ;  but  the  sonship  is  in  our  destiny 
rather  than  in  our  origin  or  state.     A  distinguished 
president  of  the  British  Association  for  Science  recently 
described  the  child  as  "  a  candidate  for  humanity." 
And   we  are    all  but  personalities  in  the  making. 
We  are  sons  by  an  election  rather  than  a  creation. 
We  are  sons  not  by  heredity  but  by  adoption ;  not 
by  right  but  by  redemption.     In  the  Old  Testament 
as  in  the  New  Testament  the  son  is  no  created  being, 
but  a  chosen.     Israel  in  the  Old  Testament,  and 
Christ  in  the  New,  are  the  Sons  of  God  by  His  elec- 
tion and  not  by  His  creation.     Christ  is  increate. 
The  whole  Bible  use  of  the  word  Father  refers  it  to 
an  act  of  choice  and  a  purpose  of  redemption.     God  is 
Father  by  His  choosing  will  and  not  by  His  creative 
power,  by  gracious  adoption  and  not  by  natural  gener- 
ation.  Of  His  will  begat  He  us,  and  by  no  instinctive 
process.     We  are  sons   "  begotten  in  the  Gospel." 
God  is,  directly,  the  Father  of  Christ  alone.    He  is  our 
Father  only  in  Christ.     God  has  but  one  Son  ;  the 
many  sons  are  sons  in  Him  ;  and  He  is  Son  in  none. 
A  positive  Gospel,theref  ore,  is  given  as  a  power  to  our ' 
Christian  experience,  while  a  liberal  theology  may  bear 
little  trace  of  Christian  experience,  and  it  may  exist 
but  as  a  truth  in  Christian  reason.  A  positive  theology 
is  at  bottom  the  theology  of  converted  men,  and  not 
of  academic  intelligence  brought  to  bear  on  the  soul, 


2  1 6   Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

the  world,  or  history.  It  is  faith  giving  a  reasonable 
account  of  itself  ;  it  is  not  reason  shaping,  amending, 
or  Ucensing  faith.  It  carries  in  its  body  the  marks  of 
the  Lord  Jesus.  Its  datum  is  in  history,  not  in 
thought.  It  has  the  stigmata  of  the  Cross  on  its  heart. 
The  positive  theology  is  more  devout  (I  am  not  speak- 
ing of  the  theologians),  the  liberal  is  more  doctrin- 
aire. The  one  is  more  concerned  with  life,  the  other 
with  truth.  The  one  is  pneumatic,  the  other  dog- 
matic. The  one  is  evangehcal  and  moral,  the  other 
intellectualist.  The  one  is  part  of  the  religion,  the 
other  is  a  view  of  the  religion.  Thus  the  liberal 
theology  is  the  more  theological,  in  the  opprobrious 
sense  of  the  term  ;  for  it  is  more  engrossed  with 
views  and  truths  than  experiences  of  faith. 

2.  For  liberalism  the  modern  mind  constitutes 
itself  the  supreme  court,  and  claims  that  nothing 
should  survive  in  Christianity  but  what  is  congenial 
to  it.  Christianity,  in  so  far  as  it  is  true,  is  simply 
"  the  passion  which  is  highest  reason  in  a  soul 
divine."  It  is,  as  the  old  Apologists  said,  the 
practicable  and  effective  completion  of  the  revelation 
that  was  labouring  for  outlet  in  Paganism.  It  is  ai 
new  branch  of  culture.  It  is  an  immense,  not  to 
say  infinite,  extension  of  our  old  horizon.  We 
are,  on  Christ's  shoulders,  lifted  but  not  saved, 
not  as  lost  sheep  rejoicing  in  a  new  life,  but  as  eager 
disciples  rejoicing  in  a  wider,  deeper  prospect  ofi 
things.  The  way  to  God  is  thus  really  the  world  and 
not  the  word.  His  seat  is  the  heart  at  its  best,  and 
not  the  conscience  at  its  worst. 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal   217 

A  positive  theology  starts  with  the  experienced 
grace  of  God  to  sin  as  a  historic  gift  in  Christ 
and  His  Cross.  It  is  a  gift  which  is  at  once  our 
source  and  our  standard,  a  gift  whose  divinity  is 
approved  by  faith's  obedience  on  the  principle 
that  he  who  willeth  to  do  God's  will  shall  know 
congenially  the  moral  quality  of  the  doctrine.  But 
the  liberal  theology  starts  from  certain  rational, 
metaphysical,  or  ethical  principles  existing  in  human 
thought,  which  determines  by  science,  and  not  by 
obedience,  whether  any  revelation,  even  Christ's,  is 
divine.  The  one  is  theology,  the  other  is  theosophy. 
The  one  starts  from  the  primacy  of  the  ethos,  the 
other  from  the  primacy  of  the  cosmos.  The  one  is 
voluntarist,  the  other  is  intellectualist.  The  one  is 
teleological,  finding  the  world's  destiny  in  the  historic 
Christ  as  the  source  and  surety  of  that  destiny 
("We  see  not  yet  all  things,  but  we  see  Jesus")  ; 
the  other  is  cosmological,  engrossed  with  the  world's 
structure  or  with  its  movement  in  reason.  For  posi- 
tivity  God's  decisive  revelation  is  in  his  action  in 
Christ,  and  its  effect  is  active  in  a  Church  ;  for  liberal- 
ism it  is  in  reason,  and  its  effect  is  contemplative  or 
theosophic  in  a  school.  The  one  acts  historically, 
subjugating  the  world  to  Christ :  the  other  aesthetic- 
ally subduing  it  to  thought.  The  one  modifies 
from  age  to  age  according  to  the  intrinsic  require- 
ments of  growing  faith  ;  the  external  Zeitgeist  being 
but  the  occasion  which  releases  the  latent  genius  of 
belief.  The  other  modifies  wholly  in  the  interest 
of  scientific   thought,  whether  physical,  psychical. 


V 


2  1 8    Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

metaphysical,  or  critical,  as  if  Christianity  were  a 
phase  of  civilization.  The  one  regards  the  revela- 
tion of  grace  as  autonomous,  the  other  will  have 
it  licensed  by  the  schools,  or  countersigned  by  the 
humane  "  heart."  The  positive  starts  with  the 
holy  and  saving  Christ,  the  liberal  with  Humanity, 
rational  or  affectional.  The  one  handles  sin,  grace, 
and  salvation  according  to  the  world's  moral  mutiny  : 
the  other  deals  but  with  weakness,  ignorance,  and 
their  evolutionary  conquest,  confirming  the  world 
in  its  pride  of  power.  A  modern  theology,  in  a 
word,  is  demanded  by  an  autonomous  evangelical 
faith  :  the  liberal  is  prescribed  by  an  aggressive,  cos- 
mological  science.  But  we  must  start  with  that  faith  ; 
its  synthesis  with  any  kind  of  science  is  a  hope  for 
which  we  wait  and  patiently  work.  The  theologian, 
that  is,  can  wait ;  but  you  preachers  cannot. 

Now,  when  we  preach  on  this  liberalistic  basis  it 
is  not  Christ  preaching  to  an  age  so  much  as  one  age, 
or  one  part  of  an  age,  preaching  to  another.  It  is 
not  a  message  from  God  to  man,  it  is  a  message  of 
the  elite  to  the  mass,  a  summons  from  the  super- 
man. It  is  man  trying  to  lift  himself  by  his  own 
collar.  Positivity,  on  the  contrary,  has  its  source  and 
its  standard  in  one,  in  the  historic  origin  of  Chris- 
tianity, the  pure  word  and  deed  of  God  in  Christ 
and  His  finished  grace.  We  preach  a  historic  message 
from  God  to  humanity,  and  not  a  message  of 
historic  humanity  to  itself ;  a  real  rescue  by  a  hand 
from  heaven  at  our  utmost  moral  need,  and  not  a 
scaling  of  heaven  by  our  intrinsic  moral  strength. 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal   219 

It  ought  to  be  said  in  justice  that  the  rationalism 
of  the  hberal  position  takes  two  forms,  a  Christian 
and  an  anti-Christian.  And  it  would  not  be  fair  to 
charge  those  who  press  the  normality  of  the  Chris- 
tian consciousness  with  the  sterilities  of  scientific 
rationalism.  It  ought,  however,  also  to  be  said, 
that  if  the  Christian  consciousness  of  each  age  is 
the  supreme  court,  the  end  is  Cathohcism — the 
supremacy  of  the  Church's  voice,  of  faith's  latest 
stage,  over  the  Gospel.  Of  course  a  modem  posi- 
tivity  admits  the  reason  as  a  critic  of  the  Bible,  of 
the  mere  sacred  history,  but  not  of  the  holy  Gospel. 
The  Gospel  which  recreates  our  moral  experience  in 
the  end  criticises  us.     We  cannot  judge  our  judge. 

§ 

3.  Positive  theology  is  creational,  liberal  is  evolu- 
tionary. For  the  positive  theologian  the  course  of 
religious  history  has  been  chiefly  determined  by  the 
due  intervention  of  supernatural  and  incomparable 
factors.  The  spirit  of  man  was  invaded  by  the 
spirit  of  God,  as  the  whole  Rhone  shoots  into  Leman. 
Every  doctrine  of  God's  immanence  must  be  com- 
patible with  that  supreme  moral  experience,  and 
licensed  by  it.  Liberal  theology  on  the  contrary 
views  the  course  of  religion  as  an  immanent  evolu- 
tion accounting  even  for  experience.  The  action  of 
God  is  not  to  recreate  our  spiritual  power  so  much  as 
to  release  and  forward  it.  It  is  not  a  raising  from  the 
dead,  but  only  a  loosing  and  letting  go.  Rehgious 
experiences  are  inevitable  products  of  the  spiritual 


2  20   Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

nature  of  man  and  the  world  as  created  and  consti- 
tuted by  God.  Whereas,  according  to  a  positive 
theology,  they  are  produced,  in  the  crucial  cases  at 
least,  by  a  special  action  of  God.  What  is  upper- 
most is  a  person  and  not  a  process.  The  Church 
represents  not  simply  the  influence  of  Christ  but 
His  Holy  Spirit.  Christian  experience,  through 
that  Spirit,  must  always  be  more  than  spiritual 
evolution.  It  comes  from  contact  or  communion 
with  a  Uving  Lord  ;  and  faith  is  only  explicable  as 
His  gift  by  the  Spirit.  In  faith,  we  do  not  feel  our- 
selves initiative  or  creative  except  as  we  feel  ourselves 
a  new  creation.  Now  as  preachers  we  must  choose 
between  these  two  versions  of  Christianity.  In  the 
preaching  of  a  Gospel  it  is  the  one  theology  rather 
than  the  other  that  serves  us.  For  the  Gospel  of 
■  liberalism  whatever  it  may  be  in  theory,  is  in  effect 
but  man  calling  to  men  ;  while  a  positive  Gospel 
is  man  called  by  God.  You  will  observe  that  I  am 
not  tr3dng  to  exhibit  the  extent  to  which  Christianity 
may  find  room  for  evolution.  That  would  occupy 
another  inquiry.  It  is  more  needful  in  the  interest 
of  preaching  to  set  out  the  antithesis.  And  here, 
the  interest  of  preaching,  is  the  interest  of  the  soul. 


4.  As  the  most  recent  phase  of  evolutionary 
religion  we  have  the  historic-religious  movement, 
challenging  the  absoluteness  of  Christianity.  Liberal- 
ism here  rises  from  the  study  of  the  religions  that 
abut  upon  the  age    of  Christ  with  this   question. 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal   2  2  i 

"  Did  they  not  make  Him  and  the  faith  of  Him  ? 
If  they  did  not  entirely  create  the  historic  figure  of 
Jesus,  did  they  not  supply  the  ideas  that  Christianity 
thought  were  revealed  in  Christ  ?  Did  they  not 
create  the  supernatural  Christ,  the  pre-exist  ent  Christ, 
the  propitiatory  Christ,  the  Christ  that  should 
judge  the  world  ?  If  so,  how  can  we  speak  of  the 
finality  of  Christ,  the  absoluteness  of  Christianity  ? 
Is  it  not  all  relative  to  what  went  before,  all  a  creation 
of  history,  all  just  the  past  writ  larger  ?  Is  it  not 
relative  to  the  future  ?  May  it  not  be  superseded 
in  its  turn  ?  How  can  anything  historical  be  more 
than  relative  ?  How  can  it  do  more  than  serve  its 
place  and  time,  and  then, when  it  has  advanced  these, 
retire  to  make  room  for  something  greater  ?  How 
can  we  speak  of  the  absolute  and  final  value  of  Christ  ? 
How  can  we  speak  of  Him  as  veritable  God  ?  " 

To  which  a  first  answer  is,  that  historical  study 
certainly  does  compel  us  to  include  Christ  in  His  time 
and  world,  and  to  alter  in  some  points  the  fashion  of 
His  claim  on  us.  In  doing  so  it  makes  a  real  historic 
figure  of  Him,  a  real  man,  and  not  a  magical  prodigy. 
He  shared  the  life  of  limited  man,  the  life  of  His 
age,  the  life  of  His  land.  In  the  region  of  mere 
knowledge  He  was  not  infallible.  He  thought  much 
in  Jewish  categories.  He  felt  human  finitude,  He 
confessed  to  some  human  ignorance.  We  modify 
the  impossible  and  Byzantine  Christ  into  a  national 
figure  real  and  mighty,  and  only  by  doing  so  do  we 
find  His  true  universality.  And  a  second  answer 
would  be  this,  that  if  the  ideas  that  have  been  most 


2  22    Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

active  in  Christianity  were  drawn  from  Judaism 
(which  itself  was  largely  shaped  by  the  farther  East) 
then  the  best  Pharisees  of  Christ's  day  were  more 
responsible  for  the  foundation  of  historic  Christianity 
than  Christ  Himself,  which  seems  a  reductio  ad  ab- 
surdum  that  I  need  not,  perhaps,  for  my  present 
purpose  pursue. 

But  we  go  farther.  We  say  that  this  limitation  in 
Christ  was  the  result,  the  expression  of  His  absolute 
power.  It  was  an  exercise  of  His  will.  It  was  self- 
limitation,  an  effect  of  His  self-emptying.  It  was 
the  very  power  of  God  under  conditions  imposed 
not  simply  by  human  nature  but  by  holy  love,  grace 
divine,  and  saving  purpose.  And  therefore  it  was 
an  expression  of  His  absoluteness.  By  His  own 
eternal  self-determined  will  He  became  lower  than 
the  angels.  He  exerted  power  over  both  the  natural 
and  the  moral  world.  For  He  overrode  natural  law, 
and  broke  the  entail  and  Nemesis  of  guilt.  His  very 
obedience  to  nature  was  a  voluntary  and  masterly 
obedience.  And  His  "  becoming  sin  "  for  us  was 
a  voluntary  act,  a  moral  achievement  of  a  kind 
possible  only  to  Godhead.  He  parted  with  a 
physical  omnipotence  but  never  with  a  moral, 
never  with  the  omnipotence  of  love,  which  is  the 
Christian  meaning  of  the  Cross.  The  limitation 
of  His  consciousness  was  no  limitation  of  His 
moral  power,  but  its  exercise.  His  ignorance  of 
many  things  we  know  at  school  was  part  of  His 
divine  renunciation.  His  subjection  to  nature,  to 
death,  to  dereliction,  was  the  act  of  His  free  grace. 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal    223 

"  'Tis  but  in  limits  that  the  master  shows."  And 
the  absolute  mastery  of  Christ  was  made  perfect  in 
the  relativity  He  assumed.  It  was  an  absolute  rela- 
tivity as  being  self-determined.  Otherwise  I  do  not 
understand  what  Troeltsch  means  by  "a  relative 
absoluteness."  The  absolute  is  less  than  absolute 
if  it  has  not  the  power  of  the  relative.  If  the 
infinite  could  not  be  finite,  it  is  less  than  infinite. 
For  there  is  then  a  region  outside  its  range.  He 
had  power  to  do  anything  perfectly  that  was  due 
to  love  and  to  the  will  of  God.  The  absoluteness 
of  His  obedience  to  that  was  the  absoluteness  of 
His  moral  power,  which  is  the  only  absoluteness  we 
have  to  do  with  at  last. 

No  doubt  the  preacher  of  a  Christ  merely  relative 
brings  Him  nearer  to  our  conditions,  but  it  is  the 
preacher  of  the  absolute  Christ  that  brings  Him  nearest 
to  our  need.  To  be  near  our  conditions  makes  a  man 
interesting,  but  to  be  near  to  our  moral  need  makes 
him  a  power.  To  humanize  Christ  is  to  popularize 
Him,  no  doubt.  But  it  is  His  Deity  that  makes  Him 
outstay  popularity,  surmount  the  desertion  of  the 
Cross ,  and  become  universal .  What  we  need  is  a  power 
to  enter  and  save  us  which  is  possible  only  to  the 
God  we  wronged ;  we  do  not  need  simply  the  most 
interesting  of  historic  figures.  Our  trouble  is  not 
our  ennui  and  not  our  ignorance,  it  is  our  sin.  It 
is  our  Holy  One  that  spoils  our  feasts  and  troubles 
our  dreams.  Is  it  not  clear  which  of  these  two 
views  belongs  to  a  preached  Gospel,  and  to  our 
moral  case  ?      Our  moral  predicament,  the  actual 


2  24   Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

need  of  the  race,  demands  chiefly,  not  a  more  human 
Jesus,  but  a  more  divine  Christ. 


-  $.  A  positive  theology  finds  the  essence  of  Chris- 
tianity in  the  core  of  the  New  Testament  Gospel, 
cleansed  of  those  temporary  hulls  that  clung  to  it  in 
the  first  century.  You  may  seek  this  core  in  the 
heart  of  Christ's  teaching  alone,  or  you  may  find 
it  in  the  Cross  as  the  heart  of  the  whole  New 
Testament  Christ.  That  is  a  controversy  which,  for 
the  moment,  we  may  pass  by.  The  point  is  that  the 
source  and  norm  is  in  the  New  Testament.  The 
simplification  of  faith  is  effected  by  going  to  its 
centre  and  origin.  That  is  to  say  it  comes  from  a 
deepening  of  faith,  and  not  merely  from  an  easing 
of  it.  The  maxim  of  textual  criticism  has  a  higher 
sense — lectio  difficilior  potius.  Distrust  the  simple 
solutions  of  old  problems.  A  simplification  of 
Christianity  which  is  not  also  a  deepening  of  it  is 
fatal  to  it.  Its  real  simplicity  lies  at  the  centre  not 
on  the  surface.  To  simplify  faith  we  must  be  taken 
to  its  heart.  The  simplicity  of  the  heart  may  be 
very  shallow,  but  the  simplicity  at  the  heart  is  deep. 
And  history  has  driven  Christianity  to  more  simplicity 
chiefly  by  forcing  it  in  on  its  centre,  and  not  by 
thrusting  it  to  the  surface.  The  Bible  has  done  much 
for  history,  but  also  history  has  done  much  for  the 
Bible.  It  has  driven  us  in  on  it.  It  has  simplified 
not  by  lucidity  but  by  concentration.  It  has  clarified 
the  issue  by  staking  all  on  the  centre,  and  by  compel- 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal   225 

ling  us  to  feel  in  that  deep  core  our  infinite  power.  It 
has  removed  our  first  concern  from  the  Bible  to  the 
Gospel  within  the  Bible.  It  has  forced  us  from  the 
simplicity  of  clearness,  obviousness,  and  ease  to  the 
simplicity  of  centrality,  depth,  and  power. 

I  speak  about  Christ  and  the  centre  of  Christ, 
which  is  to  be  found  at  the  head  of  Christianity, 
in  the  Cross,  as  the  Epistles  exist  to  say  in  a 
very  positive  fashion.  But  the  liberal  theology 
finds  the  essence  of  Christianity  to  consist  of  the 
spine,  so  to  speak,  or  marrow,  or  continuity,  or,  as 
Hegel  would  say,  the  "  truth,"  of  the  whole  de- 
velopment of  Christianity  which  Christ  but  initiated. 
You  must,  (it  says,)  include  the  whole  Christian 
history  in  your  field  of  induction.  The  spinal  cord 
has  the  same  value  as  the  brain  it  prolongs.  The 
Church  (viewed  historically  and  not  dogmatically) 
is  essential  for  our  definition  of  Christianity.  You 
cannot  read  the  Gospel  aright  except  along  with  its 
results  in  a  Church. 

One  objection  to  this  is  that,  if  that  be  so,  the  first 
Christians,  like  Paul,  had  next  to  no  data  to  go  on  ; 
and  therefore  they  were  less  in  a  position  than  we  are 
to  say  what  Christianity  really  is.  They  had  not 
the  Gospel's  results  before  them,  but  only  the  Gospel 
itself.  This  is  also  an  objection  which  tells  with  equal 
force  against  the  common  and  thoughtless  saying 
that  the  real  evidence  of  Christianity  is  the  lives  of 
Christians.  God  help  us  if  that  were  so  !  It  was 
not  Christianity  that  made  Paul  a  Christian,  it  was 
no  church.     It  was  not  even  the  story  of  Jesus  ;  it 

p.p.  li 


2  2  6   Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

--was  the  personal  contact  with  Christ.  It  was  his 
invasion  by  Christ.  Paul  had  nothing  to  speak  of 
before  him  in  the  shape  of  evidential  Christendom. 
From  the  Church  he  had  at  most  but  testimony. 
He  had  to  proceed  entirely  on  Christ's  evidence 
for  Himself. 

Another  difficulty  is  that,  on  the  liberal  view,  the 
field  of  induction  has  no  limit.  We  cannot  make  the 
books  up.  The  history  of  Christendom  still  goes  on. 
The  record  of  results  is  not  yet  done.  In  some  ways 
it  is  not  well  begun.  The  region  before  us  is  in- 
definite. The  half  has  not  been  told  How  do  we 
know  that  the  weightier  part  of  the  evidence  is  not 
yet  to  come  ?  As  with  an  iceberg,  the  larger  part 
of  the  mass  is  as  yet  under  water.  It  is  future  and 
unseen.  And  there  might  be  something  preparing 
there  which  would  change  the  centre  of  gravity  and 
upset  the  whole  fabric.  Has  God  conquered  sin, 
death,  and  the  world  in  Christ  ?  Or  is  it  still  an 
open  question  whether  these  will  not  foil,  conquer, 
and  mock  God  ? 

Were  Christianity  but  an  evolutionary  spiritual 
process  then  it  were  right  to  look  for  the  key  at  the 
close,  and  not  at  the  origin.  That  is  the  principle 
of  evolution.  Man  explains  the  monkey,  not  the 
monkey  man.  It  is  age  that  explains  youth,  and 
eternity  time — "  the  last  of  life  for  which  the  first  was 
made."  Were  Christianity  mere  evolution  we  should 
have  no  key  to  it,  since  we  have  not  yet  its  goal. 
But  it  is  not  a  case  of  evolution  ;  it  is  a  case  of 
positive   revelation.     Our  destiny   is   given   us   in 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal   227 

our  new  creation.  Paul's  apostolic  commission,  I 
have  reminded  you,  was  given  him  in  his  call  to  be 
a  Christian.  "  It  pleased  God  to  reveal  His  son  in 
me  that  I  might  preach  Him  among  the  Gentiles." 
So  the  whole  genius  of  Christianity  is  given  us, 
not  by  an  induction  from  its  history  (which  would  be 
sight)  but  by  a  deduction  from  its  head  (which  is 
faith).  We  do  not  see  eternity  but  we  realize  it  in 
Jesus,  who  is  the  substance  of  what  we  hope,  and 
the  reality  of  the  unseen.  In  all  the  more  spiritual 
products  it  is  so.  On  the  dawn  of  poetry  we  have 
Homer,  the  Eddas,  the  Kalevala,  the  Mahabarata. 
We  have  extraordinary  precocity  most  abundant 
in  the  most  spiritual  of  all  the  arts — music.  In 
life  we  take  the  most  momentous  and  formative 
decisions,  as  to  a  profession,  or  a  wife,  at  the  thresh- 
old of  life.  And  conversion,  on  which  Christianity 
itself  essentially  rests  in  one  shape  or  another,  be- 
longs to  the  first  part  of  life  rather  than  the  last. 

It  is  not  in  the  genius  of  Christianity  that  its 
essence  should  be  distilled  for  us  out  of  its  whole 
history.  The  key  is  given  in  its  source.  Were  it 
otherwise  we  concede  the  whole  principle  of  an 
evolutionary  Catholicism,  as  represented  in  the 
modem  Romanism  of  Newman  and  Mohler,  with  its 
deep  scepticism  and  lack  of  personal  certainty. 

§ 

6.  All  this  is  to  say  that  positive  Christianity  has  a 
historic  standard  in  the  New  Testament.  We  have 
there  the   norm   for   every   form.     Liberalism   has 


/ 


2  2  8   Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

none,  beyond  a  thing  of  fleeting  hues,  like  the 
modern  man,  the  modern  mind,  the  modern  con- 
science. But  is  it  not  hard  to  fix  what  the  modern 
mind  is  ?  Shall  Goethe  represent  it  or  Nietsche, 
Wordsworth  or  Byron,  Hegel  or  Haeckel,  the  meta- 
physicians or  the  psychologists,  the  optimists,  the 
pessimists,  or  the  naturalists  ?  One  says,  follow 
impulse,  man  is  essentially  divine.  Another  says 
yes — man  is  essentially  divine,  and  mainly  so  in  his 
power  to  quell  impulse.  One  says  with  Morris 
"  Love  is  enough — enjoy.'  Another  says  with 
Goethe  "  Die  to  live — renounce."  One  again  says 
"  Follow  to  the  bitter  end  your  individual  conscience 
and  its  responsibility.  Go,  with  Brand,  for  all  or 
nothing."  Another  says  with  Comte,  "  No,  the 
social  conscience  is  lord  with  its  hereditary  and 
racial  responsibility."  And  a  third  translates  this 
social  conscience  into  Christianity  as  the  Church, 
which  relieves  you  of  your  conscience  altogether  and 
takes  charge  of  it  for  you.  Which  of  these  repre- 
sents the  modern  mind  ?  Do  we  find  it  in  life-vigour 
or  life-weariness  ?  In  Bismarck  or  Amiel  ?  in  Roose- 
velt or  Tolstoi  ?  America  or  Europe  ? 

Not  everything  new  is  modern,  in  the  good  sense 
of  that  word.  That  alone  is  worthily  modern  which 
really  adds  to  the  spiritual  power  of  the  race,  and  con- 
tinues to  develop  from  the  old  the  real  spiritual  life  of 
the  world.  "  Oddities  do  not  last."  But  still  there  is 
the  question,  What  is  spiritual  life  ?  and  what  is  soundly 
progressive  ?  What  makes  us  sure  in  each  case  that 
we  have  more  than  a  mere  variant  ?     How  to  tell  a 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal   229 

development  from  a  sport,  a  purpose  from  a  freak,  a 
destiny  from  a  whim  ?  In  the  middle  ages  every- 
thing was  modern  which  was  outside  the  logic  of  the 
period,  just  as  to  many  to-day  everything  is  modern 
outside  eighteenth  century  orthodoxy.  There  is 
much  modernity  in  antiquity.  How  shall  we  dis- 
cover and  disentangle  it  ?  What  is  so  modern, 
so  fresh,  so  mighty  in  every  age  as  eternity  ?  How 
discern  it  ?  Where  is  the  favoured  haunt  of  the 
eternal  voice,  the  region  of  its  choice,  where  the  soul 
owns  its  entire  control  ?  Do  we  not  feel  that  amid  our 
unexampled  wealth  of  broad  interests,  new  departure, 
swift  change,teeming  variation,  and  external  mobility 
life  is  flattening  and  starving  to-day  for  want  of  the 
eternal  stay  of  Christ,  as  a  gorgeous  tent  slowly  sub- 
sides to  the  dust  as  the  pole  decays  ?  AU  our  escape 
from  tradition  and  from  bondage,  all  the  fires,  feats,  or 
freaks  of  freedom,  the  roses  and  raptures  of  romance, 
or  even  the  heroisms  of  the  great,  do  not  permanently 
lift  the  tone  or  dignity  of  life.  Where  are  we  to  take 
our  bearings  and  find  our  north  ?  Where  shall  we 
rest  our  lever  ?  Where  does  the  eternal  well  up 
through  time  to  flood  history  ?  To  such  questions 
a  positive  Christianity  has  an  answer  in  the 
Gospel  of  the  Cross,  taken  seriously  and  object- 
ively, the  Cross  where  eternity  springs  up  anew 
in  every  soul.  But  what  is  known  as  liberalism 
has  none.  It  believes  in  the  logic  of  the  idea,  or  in 
human  nature,  divine  human  nature,  man  failing 
often  but  unfallen  still,  man  as  God  made  him. 
Human  nature — where  I  ago  succeeds  and  Brutus 


230   Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

fails,  indeed !  Which  wins  at  history's  close  ? 
The  only  answer  we  have  to  that  is  in  the  absolute 
finality  of  the  Gospel  of  the  Cross.  Human  nature ! 
It  is  indeed  wonderful.     But,  alas  ! 

"Unless  above  himself  he  can 
Erect  himself,  how  mean  a  thing  is  man.'* 


7.  A  liberal  theology,  a  belief  in  the  unbroken 
unity  of  man  with  God,  a  creed  of  man's  essential 
divinity  superseding  the  need  of  redeeming  grace, 
needing  but  benignant  grace — such  a  theology  may 
suit  those  who  are  constitutionally  ready  to  believe 
in  goodness  from  simplicity  of  nature,  or  through 
lack  of  imaginative  lucidity,  moral  shrewdness, 
or  knowledge  of  the  world.  It  may  satisfy  those 
who  can  turn  easily  to  life's  varied  interests  and 
energies  for  relief  from  the  bleeding  wounds  of  the 
soul,  or  those  who  feel  indeed  the  tragedy  in  the 
world,  but  have  no  power  to  reahze  the  tragedy  of 
the  world.  It  may  meet  those  whose  reason  serves 
them  so  well  that  revelation  is  not  called  for,  who 
are  young  enough  to  rely  on  their  own  self-respect, 
and  to  trust  to  their  own  self-help.  But  the  modem 
man  is  inwardly  more  of  a  pessimist  than  that,  in 
the  old  countries  at  least,  where  they  have  outgrown 
youth's  happy  knack  of  hope,  and  have  long  borne 
the  white  man's  burden.  The  modern  man  represents 
the  bankruptcy  of  natural  optimism,  and  more  and 
more  craves  for  deliverance.  He  tastes  life's  tragedy 
and  guilt,  and  pines  for  a  Saviour,  even  when  he 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal   231 

disowns  ours.  "  O,  had  I  lived,"  says  one  of  them, 
"  when  Jesus  of  Nazareth  walked  in  Gahlee  I  would 
have  followed  Him,  and  lost  all  my  pride  in  the  love 
of  Him."  Now,  a  positive  theology  comes  to  this 
jaded,  impotent  life  with  the  note  of  a  real,  foregone 
redemption.  It  comes  to  modem  Europe,  the  Europe 
of  the  Renaissance,  and  the  Illumination,  and  the 
Revolution,  and  it  comes  to  a  Europe  disillusioned 
of  them  all,  as  it  came  to  the  debacle  of  classical 
antiquity.  And  man's  extremity  elicits  the  central 
resource  of  God  the  Saviour.  As  the  time  grows 
short  God  grows  swift  and  keen.  "  As,  the  shorter 
time  Satan  hath,  the  more  is  his  rage,  so,  the  shorter 
time  Christ  hath,  the  more  is  His  zeal  for  His  saints 
and  indignation  against  His  enemies.  His  heart 
is  set  on  it,  and  therefore  it  is  we  see  in  this  latter 
age  He  hath  made  such  changes  in  the  world.  We 
have  seen  Him  do  that  in  a  few  years  that  He  hath 
not  done  in  a  hundred  years  before.  For,  being 
King  of  nations.  He  presses  His  interests  ;  and  being 
more  near  His  kingdom  He  takes  it  with  violence. 
We  are  now  within  the  whirl  of  it  and  so  His  motions 
are  rapt."     Thus  even  Goodwin  the  Puritan. 

It  is  true  a  fresh  young  people,  like  America, 
has  a  somewhat  different  note.  But  it  is  useless 
to  refer  the  weary  Titan  of  Europe  merely  to  the 
young  Hercules  of  the  West.  The  young  men  too 
shall  grow  weary,  and  their  strength  shall  utterly 
fail.  Nature  has  its  due  course  to  senility,  and  a 
natural  optimism  has  its  dying  fall.  It  is  the  waiters 
on  God  that  renew  their  strength.  Christianity  comes 


232    Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

to-day  as  it  came  in  the  first  centuries,  to  a  paganism 
which  is  disillusioned  about  itself  and  is  sinking  into 
pessimism.  In  those  first  days  Christianity  took  the 
world  at  its  own  estimate,  and  brought  the  message 
that  the  situation  required.  Even  Stoicism  then 
despaired  of  the  mass  of  mankind  in  spite  of  its 
high  conception  of  Humanity.  It  could  not  make 
a  religion  of  that  idea.  It  had  the  dream  but  not 
the  power.  It  had  not  the  Redemption,  the  secret 
of  a  new  creation.  This  was  the  one  thing  the  age 
craved,  and  it  was  the  one  thing  Christianity  brought. 
And  it  was  to  this  outworn  world  Christianity  came. 
It  was  not  to  the  northern  world  of  the  fresh  Teutonic 
races.  Its  method  was  not  to  save  an  old  civihzation 
by  the  infusion  of  a  new  and  hopeful  race.  Or  do 
you  think  that  what  saved  antiquity  was  not  the 
Christian  redemption  but  the  incursion  of  the  Nor- 
thern peoples  ?  Well,  Europe  to-day  is  rapidly 
moving  to  where  antiquity  had  come,  to  moral 
exhaustion,  and  to  the  pessimism  into  which  natural 
optimism  swings  when  the  stress  and  burden  are 
extreme.  Do  you  think  that  that  situation  is  to  be 
saved  by  the  spontaneous  resources  of  human  nature, 
or  the  entrance  upon  the  Weltpolitik  of  a  mighty 
young  people  like  America  ?  Is  there  no  paganism 
threatening  America  ?  What  is  to  save  America 
from  her  own  colossal  power,  energy,  self-confidence 
and  preoccupation  with  the  world  ?  Her  Chris- 
tianity no  doubt.  But  a  Christianity  which  places 
in  the  centre  not  merely  Christ  but  the  Cross  and 
its   Redemption,   in  a  far  more  ethical  way  than 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal    233 

America  is  doing  ;  a  Christianity  which  is  not  only 
set  in  the  presence  of  Christ's  person  but  caught 
into  the  motion  of  Christ's  work,  which  is  not  only 
with  Christ  but  in  Him  by  a  total  moral  and  social 
salvation. 

For  the  time,  however,  your  young  optimism 
hardly  reahzes  the  tragic  need  for  an  absolute  salva- 
tion. You  are  too  Pelagian.  I  feel  that  Christianity 
comes  with  a  less  redemptive  word,  perhaps,  to  a 
fresh  and  dawning  race  ;  as  to  the  vigorous  Teutons 
of  the  fourth  century  in  the  north  of  Europe  it 
came  with  a  more  Arian  creed  than  was  extorted 
from  the  Gospel  by  the  desperate  case  of  dying 
Rome.  To  youth  the  harmony  of  Christianity  with 
the  nobler  natural  man  may  appeal  more  strongly 
than  does  its  blow  to  nature  from  the  Cross. 
Your  energy  insists  on  synergy  with  God.  Your 
lack  of  tradition  discredits  a  great  theology.  The 
transfiguration  of  humanity  may  be  more  attractive 
to  you  than  its  death  and  resurrection  in  Christ, 
because  it  is  less  deep.  Hegel  with  his  calm 
process  of  reconcihation  may  seem  more  Christian 
than  the  pessimists  with  their  cry  for  redemption, 
and  the  iron  quivering  in  their  soul.  It  is  easy  to 
believe  in  man  when  the  world  is  young,  when 
every  woman  is  a  queen,  and  every  goose  a  swan. 
It  is  easy  to  speak  in  pantheistic  philosophemes  of 
the  essential  divinity  of  human  nature,  and  man's 
homogeneity  with  God.  What  has  Christianity  to 
do  with  that  ?  That  is  for  the  philosophers.  What 
brought  Christ,  and  brought  Him  to  the  Cross,  was 


2  34   Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

man's  alienation  from  God  and  his  hate.  To  harp 
on  continuity  when  we  need  communion,  and  for 
communion  redemption,  betrays  that  the  moral 
eye  has  still  its  scales  ;  that  sin  has  not  yet  bitten  ; 
that  there  is  not  yet  resistance  unto  blood ;  that 
the  holy  has  not  yet  outgrown  the  homely  ;  that 
grace  is  untasted  still,  however  the  heart  takes  its 
fill  of  love  ;  and  that  the  holy  has  not  become  the 
one  reality.  It  indicates  the  ethical  amateur  brisk 
in  his  studies,  though  at  times  abashed  ;  but  not 
the  broken  man,  the  broken  and  contrite  sphit, 
shamed,  desperate,  and  delivered,  lost  and  found.  In 
such  a  Gospel  as  that  of  man's  natural  and  indelible 
sonship  we  not  only  have  no  need  that  God  be 
reconciled  to  us;  we  hardly  seem  to  need  to  be 
reconciled  to  God.  All  we  seem  to  need  is  to  be 
'reconciled  to  our  inner  truer  selves.  Be  true  to 
yourself,  is  the  note  of  this  youthful  Gospel,  and 
stir  up  one  another  to  love.  Cultivate  the  Spirit 
of  Jesus.  BeUeve  and  work  for  spiritual  progress. 
Meet  with  a  shining  face  the  dawn  of  God  who  loves 
to  see  His  children  happy.  Yes,  but  meantime,  where 
is  the  anguish  of  the  new  birth  ?  And  where  the 
stricken   confession   "God   be    merciful   to   me   a 

sinner  "  ? 

In  a  positive  Gospel,  on  the  contrary,  everythmg 
turns  on  a  real  supernatural  revelation,  on  a  funda- 
mental perdition,  a  radical  evil,  and  a  rescue  from 
without  as  the  one  thing  that  makes  a  Christian 
humanity.  Our  salvation  is  not  the  mere  contagion 
spread  by  powerful  rehgious  personaUties.    Nor  is  it 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal   235 

the  progress  of  a  gradual  spiritualization.  It  is  a 
unique  and  finished  work  of  God  in  Christ,  to  be 
taken,  not  made.  It  is  not  apiece  of  impressionism  ;  it 
is  a  real  redemption  in  the  heart  of  things,  in  creative 
deed  and  not  in  stirring  word  alone.  You  cannot 
deeply  preach  without  the  note  of  a  tragic  and  total 
redemption.  To  harp  upon  this  as  a  truth  is  easy, 
I  know,  and  it  can  be  tedious  ;  and  the  world  has 
been  well  bored  by  it  often.  But  to  preach  it,  to 
saturate  with  the  power  and  principle  of  it  all 
thought  and  reality,  that  is  a  great  life  work,  which 
puts  the  preacher's  soul  much  upon  the  Cross,  but 
also  raises  it  continually  from  the  dead. 


Behind  aU  the  differences  between  a  positive 
Gospel  and  religious  liberalism  there  keep  reap- 
pearing the  two  elements,  personality  with  its 
immortality  and  sin  with  its  witness  to  holiness.  The 
liberalism  I  speak  of  consistently  tends  to  erase  the 
personal  element  both  from  God  and  from  the  human 
future.  Its  note  is  some  variety  of  Pantheism, 
with  all  the  spell  and  appeal  of  that  issue  to  those 
who  have  but  an  intellectual  history.  And  it 
farther  erases,  like  all  Monistic  systems,  the  decisive 
factor  in  history,  the  factor  of  sin  and  of  God's  holi- 
ness. The  holiness  of  the  Spinosist  deity  is  not 
holy  in  the  Christian  sense,  nor  in  any  sense  which 
leaves  us  with  a  real  conscience.  Even  Hegel  tends 
to  erase  that.  For  such  a  cree-i  sin  is  not  outside 
the    vast    process    of   reconciliation    whereby   the 


236    Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

supreme  idea  finds  in  the  ideas  below  something 
intrinsically  serviceable  to  its  final  purpose  when 
the  hour  comes  for  them  to  be  absorbed  and  pre- 
served {aufgehohen) .  There  is  something  in  sin  which 
can  be  preserved  and  utilized  for  the  divine  purpose. 
That  is  to  say,  there  is  something  in  it  (as  sin,  and 
not  merely  as  free  volition)  which  is  due  to  the 
divine  purpose,  and  may  be  incorporated  in  the 
great  reconcilement.  One  day  we  may  see  (if  at 
that  far  day  we  continue  to  exist  capable  of  seeing 
anything)  how  our  sin  was  a  negative  contribution 
to  the  divine  event,  and  had  its  place  in  the  divine 
scheme  of  things.  And  we  may  even  be  ashamed 
of  the  pother  we  made  about  it. 

All  this  is  absolutely  incompatible  with  the  sin  that 
brought  death  to  God  in  the  Son  of  God.  Sin  as  we 
see  it  by  God's  holiness  in  Christ's  Cross  contains 
nothing  that  can  be  absorbed  by  that  holiness  and 
given  an  eternal  value.  It  is  outside  the  range  of 
reconcileable  things.  It  can  only  be  destroyed  as 
in  principle  Christ  did  destroy  it.  Doubtless  it 
must  be  made  to  minister  to  God's  greater  glory ; 
but  never  by  any  kind  of  exploitation  ;  and  only 
by  entire  destruction. 

In  all  the  efforts  to  subdue  Christian  theology  to 
be  a  province  of  the  empire  of  pure  thought  there 
is  discernible  an  inability  which  seems  constitutional 
to  gauge  the  fact  of  sin  at  its  moral  value.  There 
is  some  lack  of  a  moral  retina.  There  is  an 
absence  of  a  personal  moral  history.  There  is  a 
poverty  of  iroril  realism  and  of  soul  history  as  dis- 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal   237 

tinct  from  the  mind's.  Yet  I  venture  to  think  that 
there  is  more  of  a  key  to  the  divine  method  in  the 
tragedies  of  remorse  and  the  shame  of  guilt  than 
in  the  fascinating  processes  of  speculative  thought. 
The  greatest  of  modem  popular  orators,  a  master 
of  laughter,  tears,  and  all  assemblies,  often  visited  a 
friend  of  mine.  One  day  as  they  stood  on  a  height 
which  commanded  a  noble  view  my  friend  missed 
him,  and  on  search  found  him  some  yards  away,  prone 
on  the  heath,  sobbing,  with  his  head  buried  in  his 
hands.  When  he  had  recovered  somewhat,  and  assured 
his  companion  it  was  not  illness,  he  said  that  from 
time  to  time  some  sight  of  greatness  suddenly 
smote  into  him  the  shame  of  what  he  had  been  in 
the  years  of  his  dissipation  and  sin.  And  the  horror 
of  it  never  lost  its  freshness,  nor  did  the  freshness  fade 
from  the  wonder  of  his  forgiveness.  Moments  like 
these,  and  men  hke  these,  have  a  key  to  the  spiritual 
system  of  the  world  which  the  thinkers  must  fail  to 
turn  till  they  insert  in  its  ring  much  more  than  their 
thought.  And  to  have  no  such  experience,  or  at 
least  the  power  to  understand  it,  is  to  be  a  minor 
in   the   moral  hfe. 

§ 

8.  To  gather  the  matter  up.  The  liberal  theo- 
logy finds  Chrisfs  centre  of  gravity  in  what  He 
has  in  common  with  us ;  a  positive  theology  in 
that  wherein  He  differs.  The  one  urges  us  to  a 
faith  like  Christ's,  the  other  to  a  faith  in  Christ. 
The   one  bids   us   imitate   the   religion   of   Jesus ; 


238   Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

the  other  cannot  attempt  to  imitate  a  Redeemer, 
or  criticize  the  judge  of  conscience ;   and  it  takes 
Jesus    for   our  rehgion.     The  one  preaches  as   the 
principle  of    Christianity  the  principle  of  indefec- 
tible human  sonship,  the  principle  of  man's  incor- 
rigible spirituality,  with  Christ  only  as    its  classic 
case  and  supreme  prophet ;  the  other  identifies  the 
principle  with  Christ,  and  finds  it  secured  only  in 
the   total   act  of   His  eternal  person.     Liberalism 
dwells  on  Christ's  preaching,  positivity  on  a  Christ 
preached.     The  one  finds  the  most  impressive  thing 
in   Christ  to   be   His   perfect   human   nature ;   the 
other  is  much    more  impressed  by  His  treatment 
of    human    nature    than   by    His    incarnation    of 
it.     The  one  dwells  on  Christ  as  the  expression  of 
humanity,  the  other  dwells  on  His  business  with 
humanity.     For   the  one   He  consummates  it,  for 
the  other  He  redeems  it.   Liberalism  offers  Christ  to 
a  seeking  world  as  its  answer,  or  to  a  suffering  world 
as  its  healer  ;  positivity  offers  Him  to  a  guilty  world 
also  as  its  Atoning  Saviour.     The  one  treats  the 
sinlessness  of  Christ  as  the  expression  of  the  essential, 
though  soiled,  sinlessness  of  man  ;  the  other  treats  it 
as  the  sanctity  possible  only  to  the  Holy  One  of  God. 
The  one  regards  it  as  a  relative  sinlessness  ;    the 
other  as  an  absolute  holiness.     The  one  takes  stand 
on  love  ;    the  other  declares  that  the  divine  thing 
in  love,  as  it  is  in  Christ,  is  holy  grace.     For  the  one 
the  divine  reality  is  a  calm  and  mystic  presence  and 
he  joys  that  God  is  near  in  love  ;    for  the  other  it 
is  a  perpetual  deed,  and  the  nearness  is  a  terror 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal    239 

except  as  grace  for  love  scorned.  A  liberal  theology 
discerns  God's  real  presence  in  the  mere  action, 
process,  or  movement  of  the  world  ;  a  positive  finds  it 
in  the  act  of  the  world,  the  supreme  act  of  history 
which  consummates  the  world.  The  one  is  engrossed 
with  the  way  God's  presence  pervades  His  world,  the 
other  with  the  way  He  realizes  by  redemptive  act  His 
purpose  in  the  world.  The  one  finds  Christ  to 
crown  the  immanence  of  the  divine  presence  in 
the  world  ;  the  other  finds  Him  to  be  the  incarna- 
tion of  the  divine  will  with  the  world.  The  one  has 
the  cosmological  interest  of  evolution,  the  other  the 
teleological  interest  of  Redemption.  For  liberalism 
the  world  is  God's  arena,  His  sphere  of  energy, 
where  His  substance,  forces,  and  ideas  play  ;  for 
positivity  it  is  becoming  His  Kingdom,  where  His 
purpose  rules.  For  the  one  the  world  is  His  organ, 
for  the  other  it  is  His  creature ;  and  while  He  is 
immanent  in  His  creature,  He  is  incarnate  only  in 
His  uncreated  Son.  If  the  world  is  the  creature  of 
His  holy  love,  the  Son  is  more  ;  He  is  its  eternal 
counterpart.  For  the  one  the  world  was  created 
for  Christ,  or  at  least  for  Christ's  ideal ;  for  the 
other  it  was  created  in  Christ. 


Religion  as  it  grows  powerful  grows  positive.  But 
the  constant  drift  of  liberalism  is  away  from  positi- 
vity, and  it  devotes  itself  to  the  scientific  study  of 
religions.  Yet  even  that  study  might  teach  us  that 
the  constant  tendency  of   religion,  as  it  rises  in   the 


240  Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

scale,  is  to  be  more  positive,  more  historic,  more 
defined,  and  more  objective.  There  is  no  such  thing 
an3rwhere  as  rehgion  per  se,  reUgion  apart  from  a 
specific  form  of  rehgion — unless  perhaps  we  find  it  in 
the  decadents  from  the  higher  types,  where  you  have 
a  vague  rehgiosity  with  the  effort  to  detach  itself 
from  every  form — Church,  doctrine,  or  any  other 
clear  committal.  But  in  the  historic  rehgions,  as  you 
rise  in  the  scale  of  quality  you  grow  in  positivity. 
They  become  more  historical,  and  more  dogmatic, 
more  explicit  in  regard  to  the  gravest  issues.  They 
do  not  erase  the  frontiers,  though  they  promote  the 
coming  and  going  of  a  freer  trade.  A  positive 
religion  is  a  concrete  one.  It  is  so  intellectually ;  and 
still  more  so  morally.  Experience,  I  keep  sa5dng, 
makes  an  appeal  to  our  will  and  choice.  It  puts  us 
upon  our  moral  mettle.  It  takes  a  line.  It  stakes 
life  and  eternity  on  selection,  decision,  committal. 
It  calls  us  to  moral  verve  and  vigilance.  There  are 
mature  lives  to-day  which  are  darker  than  they 
would  have  been  had  they  not  at  the  early  stage 
fallen  victims  to  a  vague  and  pathetic  fallacy  of 
fatherhood,  in  which  the  holy  had  no  meaning  and 
judgment  no  place.  But  how  poor,  how  remote  it 
all  is.  As  we  live  we  are  being  tried  for  our 
life.  And  that  is  the  issue  you  face  as  preachers. 
One  of  these  tendencies  will  make  you  preachers 
of  a  Gospel,  the  other  will  make  you  advocates 
of  a  culture.  One  will  make  you  strangers  and 
sojourners  in  the  world,  the  other  citizens  of  the 
world,  maybe  men  of  the  world.      One  will  make 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal   241 

you  apostles  of  Christ,  and  one  will  make  you  cham- 
pions of  humanity.  One  will  make  you  severe  with 
yourself,  one  will  make  you  tender  with  yourself. 
One  will  commend  you  to  the  naughty  people,  and 
one  will  commend  you  to  the  nice. 

Now  of  these  two  tendencies  one  means  the  de- 
struction of  preaching.  If  it  cease  to  be  God's  word, 
descending  on  men  and  intervening  in  history,  then  it 
will  cease  as  an  institution  in  due  time.  It  may  become 
lecturing,  or  it  may  become  oratory,  but  as  preach- 
ing it  must  die  out  with  a  positive  Gospel.  People 
cannot  be  expected  to  treat  a  message  of  insight 
from  man  to  man  as  they  do  a  message  of  revelation 
from  God  to  man.  An  age  cannot  be  expected  to 
treat  a  message  from  another  age  as  they  treat  a 
message  from  Eternal  God  to  every  age.  Men  with 
the  passion  of  the  present  cannot  be  expected  to 
listen  even  to  a  message  from  humanity  as  they 
would  to  one  from  God.  And  if  humanity  redeem 
itself  you  will  not  be  able  to  prevent  each  member 
of  it  from  feeling  that  he  is  his  own  redeemer.  If  we 
owe  everything  to  man's  innate  spirituaHty,  asserting 
itself  in  various  forms  of  life  or  worship,  we  have, 
in  this  spirituality,  something  aU  too  vague  for 
a  Gospel,  too  familiar  for  a  message,  and  too  little 
positive  to  give  a  real  preacher  his  text,  or  his 
authority,  or  even  his  audience.  For  if  it  is  aU  a 
matter  of  innate  human  spirituality  it  is  too  innate 
to  each  hearer  to  dispose  him  to  hear  it  meekly. 
How  should  he  hear  meekly  a  word  which  is  not 
engrafted  but  evolved  out  of  the  common   spiritual 

p.p.  16 


242    Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal 

stock.  Each  man's  own  spirituality  is  in  its  nature 
as  good  as  anything  another  man  might  bring  him. 
Is  it  not  all  really  a  serious  issue,  and  a  grave 
choice  ?  The  less  seriously  you  feel  the  issue  the 
more  serious  it  is  for  you.  Not  to  feel  the  immense 
gulf  it  cleaves  is  not  to  choose  with  open  eyes. 
Whichever  side  you  go  to,  go  with  an  adequate 
sense  of  what  is  involved.  Do  not  treat  the  matter 
as  if  to  men  of  sense  and  soul  there  were  but 
one  rational  possibility.  One  respects  far  more  a 
man  who  really  grasps  the  situation  and  dehberately 
goes  to  the  wrong  side — far  more  than  one  who 
goes  there  for  want  of  knowing  his  subject,  or  who 
good-naturedly  minimizes  the  difference  and  says 
we  are  all  one  at  bottom.  If  we  are  so,  it  is  either 
in  a  positive  Christ,  or  in  a  pantheistic,  monistic 
unity  which  is  spiritually  unmeaning  and  morally 
noxious.  What  we  do  not  respect  is  the  assumption 
of  the  Hberal  and  superior  note  by  men  who  have  not 
wrestled  with  the  subject,  or  measured  the  ground, 
but  are  the  victims  of  epicurean  reading,  easy 
books,  or  popular  expositors.  This  matter  is  really, 
for  the  preacher,  an  issue  of  the  soul,  a  decision  of 
the  life,  which  turns  study  from  a  pursuit  to  a  con- 
flict, and  makes  the  attainment  of  conviction  a 
wrestling  with  God  for  your  salvation.  For  the 
preacher,  truly,  the  salvation  of  the  soul  is  also  the 
salvation  of  the  mind.  Your  mind  also  must  come 
to  the  obedience  and  service  of  faith.  There  is  such 
a  thing  as  the  sacrificium  intellectus.  But  it  is  not 
to  an  institution  it  is  to  the   conscience.     It  is  the 


Preaching  Positive  and  Liberal   243 

recognition  of  that  primacy  of  the  moral  which  views 
sin  as  the  crux  of  the  ethical,  i.e.  the  human,  situation, 
and  redemption  as  its  only  solution.  Your  charter  as 
preachers  is  not  contained  in  what  the  world  says  to 
your  earnest  thought  but  in  what  the  Word  says 
to  your  sinful  conscience.  And  the  question  is 
not  "  What  do  you  think  of  Christ  ?  "  but,  "  How 
do  you  treat  Him  ?  "  It  is  not  what  is  He  to 
you.  It  is  more  even  than  what  is  He  for  you. 
And  stiU  more  it  is  what  is  He  in  you.  And  are 
you  in  Him  ?  That  last  is  in  some  ways  the 
most  crucial  question  of  all.  For  by  having  Christ 
in  you,  you  may  mean  no  more  than  inheriting 
the  results  of  His  vast  historic  movement,  and 
absorbing  into  your  character  the  moral  fruits  of 
His  legacy  to  men.  So  you  might  have  Christ 
working  on  in  you  in  a  posthumous  way.  But 
when  you  ask  yourself,  "  Am  I  in  Him  ?  "  you  can 
say.  Yea,  to  that  only  if  He  still  live,  and  live  as 
Himself  our  spiritual  world,  made  unto  us  justifica- 
tion, sanctification,  and  redemption. 


PREACHING    POSITIVE   AND 
MODERN 


VII 
Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

§ 

Theology,  if  it  is  to  be  of  real  use  to  the  preacher, 
must  be  modernized.  It  is  fruitless  to  offer  to  the 
public  the  precise  modes  of  thought  which  were 
so  fresh  and  powerful  with  the  Reformers,  or  the 
schemes  so  ably  propounded  by  the  dogmatists 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  so  severely  raked 
by  the  Socinians.  The  nineteenth  century  was  not 
a  theological  century,  but  it  has  not  passed  without 
leaving  a  great  and  good  effect  upon  theology.  It 
was  a  century  of  scholarship,  of  criticism,  and  of 
heresy.  But  do  we  not  recognize  now  that  com- 
petent heresy  is  a  negative  blessing  to  the  Church 
and  its  truth  ?  Only  it  must  be  competent.  It 
is  the  dabblers  on  both  sides  that  do  the  mischief. 
We  must  carry  on  the  work  of  last  century  in 
modernizing  theology. 

But  what  does  the  modernizing  of  theology  mean  ? 
Does  it  mean  that  its  control  passes  into  the  hands 
of  modern  theories  of  the  soul  and  the  world  ?  Does 
it  mean  that  the  Christian  idea  of  a  holy  God  shall 

247 


248    Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

be  at  the  mercy  of  what  is  a  mere  philosophical 
ultimate  ?  Does  it  mean  that  theology  must  be 
licensed  by  the  cosmologies  or  psychologies  of  the 
hour  ?  Does  it  mean  that  we  start  with  a  certain 
scheme  of  creation  and  cut  off  all  that  projects 
over  its  edge  ?  For  instance,  nothing  more  worthily 
marks  the  modem  Church  than  the  idea  of  evolution, 
especially  in  connexion  with  its  own  history.  But 
is  our  belief  to  be  stretched  on  the  pallet  of  evolution, 
for  instance,  and  everything  to  be  trimmed  down 
which  is  beyond  that  scheme  ?  The  Higher  Criti- 
cism is  a  gift  to  us  of  the  spirit  which  gave  us  the 
Bible.  But  is  the  Bible  to  be  put  on  the  rack  of 
mere  literary  criticism,  or  historic,  or  even  ethical, 
and  nothing  accepted  from  it  but  what  it  emits 
under  such  question  ?  Are  the  scholars,  the  savants, 
the  philosophers  to  be  the  Board  of  Triers  for  the 
Gospel  ?  Is  modern  just  eqivalent  to  d  la  mode  ? 
_^  The  result  of  that  I  have  already  discussed  as 
mere  theological  liberalism,  which,  in  the  effort  to 
discard  dogma,  only  substitutes  philosophic  dogma 
for  theological.  The  error  is  in  its  start  and  stan- 
dard. It  begins  from  the  wrong  end.  It  begins 
with  a  scheme  of  creation,  a  scheme  of  the  world 
or  man,  with  which,  in  truth,  religion  is  but  indirectly 
concerned.  And  it  does  not  begin  with  the  new 
creation,  with  the  evangelical  experience,  the 
moral  redemption,  Eternal  Life  in  Jesus  Christ. 
It  begins  with  the  world  and  not  with  the  Word, 
with  thought  and  not  faith,  with  love  and  not 
grace,  with  kindness  and  not  hoHness.     It  is  cosmo- 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern   249 

logical,  or  it  is  psychological,  being  preoccupied 
with  the  structure  and  action  of  nature  or  of  mind  ; 
whereas  religion  (and  the  Christian  faith  certainly) 
is  teleological,  being  preoccupied  with  God's  purpose 
and  goal  for  things,  and  for  history,  and  for  the 
soul.  The  one  makes  a  specification  of  life  and  know- 
ledge, and  requires  any  religion  which  tenders  to 
comply.  It  thinks  of  man's  rational  structure 
more  than  his  moral  need,  of  his  power  to  under- 
stand more  than  his  weakness  to  trust  and  obey. 
The  other  lays  hold  of  God's  object  with  life,  finding 
in  Christ  both  the  goal  and  its  guarantee.  The 
one  gives  no  finality,  because  the  schemes  of  life 
and  drafts  of  the  world  are  changing  with  pro- 
gress ;  the  other  has  finality  or  nothing,  because 
it  begins  with  God's  chief  end  for  history  in  its 
salvation  in  Jesus  Christ.  In  Christ  it  finds  in 
advance  the  eternal  and  final  purpose  of  God.  We 
see  not  yet  all  things — but  we  see  Jesus.  It  is 
teleological  and  redemptive.  In  a  word,  if  theology 
is  to  be  modernized  it  must  be  by  its  own  Gospel. 
The  two  methods  differ  in  their  start,  then.  The 
one  begins  with  man,  the  other  with  God,  the  one 
with  science  or  sentiment,  the  other  with  the  Gospel, 
the  one  with  the  healthy  heart  and  its  satisfaction, 
the  other  with  the  ruined  conscience  and  its  redemp- 
tion. The  one  begins  with  the  world,  (as  I  say)  the 
other  with  the  Word.  But,  in  practice,  we  find  this — 
that  to  begin  with  the  world  is  to  become  dubious 
about  the  Word  ;  whereas  to  begin  with  the  Word 
is  to  become  sure  about  the  world.     A  philosophy 


250  Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

can  bring  us  to  no  security  of  a  revelation ;  but  a 
revelation  develops  a  philosophy,  or  a  view  of  the 
world ;  it  is  adjustable  to  many  schemes  of  the 
world  ;  and  it  is  hospitable  to  many  of  the  modem 
principles  of  interpreting  the  world.  It  is  not  the 
victim  of  modem  theories  like  monism,  but  it 
has  welcome  for  many  modem  principles  like 
evolution.  In  the  face  of  modern  theories  or  dogmas 
the  Word  of  revelation  is  autonomous.  It  has  its 
own  dogmas  by  an  equal  right.  But  in  face  of  modem 
principles  it  discerns  in  them,  and  often  through 
their  means,  the  hidden  treasures  of  its  own  wealth. 
But  whether  on  suggestion  from  without,  or  on 
impulse  from  within,  it  develops  its  latent  wealth 
by  its  own  native  genius  and  freedom.  It  reforms 
and  rediscovers  itself,  as  it  did  in  the  Reformation. 
The  creeds  are  discoveries  of  the  Church  to  itself  by 
the  heresies,  which  are  therefore  negative  blessings. 
And  these  two  things,  the  Church's  recognition  of 
modem  principles  and  its  rediscovery  of  its  own, 
combine  to  modernize  the  theology  it  presents  to  in- 
telligence. It  is  friendly  and  reasonable  to  theories 
Uke  evolution,  but  it  is  commanded  by  the  fact  of 
redemption  and  its  experience.  It  claims  that  its 
experience  of  God  reconciling  in  Christ  is  as  real  and 
valid  as  any  experience  of  the  world.  Its  faith  is 
an  organ  of  real  knowledge.^  What  science  does  for 
our  knowledge  of  things  and  forces,  faith  does  for 
our  knowledge  of  persons,  our  knowledge,  above 
all,  of  our  personal  God  and  His  saving  will. 
^  See,  among  many  others,  Paulsen's  Ethik,  passim. 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern   251 

§ 

I.  And  if  I  may  first  ask  what  are  the  positive 
doctrines  which,  amid  all  that  is  modernized  in  it, 
make  Christianity  still  a  Gospel  of  the  Grace  of 
God,  the  answer  would  in  my  judgment  be  this.^ 
They  are  the  Eternal  Sonship,  the  Mediatorship, 
and  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ. 

I.  It  is  a  Gospel  of  Jesus  the  Eternal  Son  of  God. 
It  sets  Christ's  person  in  the  centre  of  theology 
no  less  than  of  religion.  If  the  nineteenth  century 
had  done  no  more  than  restore  the  person  of  Christ 
to  the  centre  of  theology,  it  would  have  done  a 
very  great  theological  work.  The  historic  Jesus  is 
personally  identical  with  the  Christian  principle  or 
with  the  Eternal  Christ.  He  stood  thus  in  a  unique 
relation  to  Eternal  God.  It  was  a  relation  unique 
not  only  as  being  unattained  so  far  by  other  men. 
For  that  is  not  denied  by  the  hberaHsm  of  the 
hour  as  a  mere  historic  verdict.  But  He  was  unique 
in  a  dogmatic  sense,  in  a  way  unattainable  not 
only  by  any  man  but  by  collective  humanity. 
This  unique  relation  to  God  constituted  His  person, 
and  it  was  not  simply  an  exercise  of  His  person.  It 
was  not  attained  by  Him,  but  He  was  constituted  in 
it.  He  began  by  being  the  Son  of  God  in  eternal  fact, 
though  He  ended  by  being  the  Son  in  historic  power. 
The  idea  of  a  metaphysical  sonship  is  not  absurd, 
though  our  data  make  its  express  form  tentative  only. 

*  See   Theodore    Kaftan.  Die   neue    Theologie  des   alten 

Glaubens. 


2^2   Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

The  metaphysical  unity  with  God  is  postulated 
by  the  evangelical  unity,  however  far  it  may  be 
from  being  defined.  It  is  a  unity  which  is  far  more 
than  harmony  of  will.  It  involves  parity  of  being, 
which  places  the  historic  Jesus  with  the  Creator,  rather 
than  the  creature,  and  beside  the  Creator,  rather  than 
under  Him.  He  was  of  Godhead.  If  we  take  in  their 
full  earnest  the  words  that  God  was  in  Christ  recon- 
ciling we  have  in  this  Christ  the  real  presence  and 
action  of  a  forgiving  God.  The  act  of  Christ  was 
stiU  more  God's  act,  and  not  a  mere  reflection  of 
it.  His  love  was  God's  love,  and  not  a  mere  re- 
sponse to  it  We  have  Christ  doing  what  God 
alone  could  do — forgiving  sin  committed  against 
God  alone.  None  but  the  injured  could  either 
forgive  or  save.  If  God  was  not  saving  in  Christ, 
if  Christ  was  not  God  saving.  He  was  saving  from 
God.  And  we  can  do  but  lean  justice  to  Christ's 
own  description  of  His  consciousness  at  the  close 
of  Matthew  xi.,  if  we  do  not  set  Him  apart  in 
kind  as  well  as  function  from  the  rest  of  the  race, 
and  find  just  there  the  secret  of  His  unique 
identification  with  the  race.  No  one  who  was 
simply  one  of  the  race  could  contain  and  shelter 
the  race  as  Christ  felt  He  could  when  He  said,  "  Come 
unto  Me  all  ye  that  labour."  To  come  unto  this 
Christ  is  to  come  into  Him.  No  one  who  was 
simply  of  the  race  could  identify  himself  so  com- 
pletely with  the  whole  race  as  redemption  demands. 
And  it  was  as  God  that  He  was  worshipped  by  the 
first  Church.     Be  the  story  of  His  birth  fact  or 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern   253 

symbol,  at  least  it  proves  that.  In  Jesus,  then,  we  do 
not  hear  of  God,  we  meet  Him.  He  does  not  simply 
reveal  God ;  He  is  God  in  revelation,  the  gracious 
God  revealed. 


2.  It  is  a  Gospel  of  Jesus  the  Mediator.  He 
mediates  the  holy  grace  of  God,  not  as  the  preacher 
does,  but  in  a  way  that  the  preacher  has  to  preach. 
He  is  the  mediator  and  not  the  medium.  He  is  ■ 
the  Redeemer,  and  not  the  champion,  of  mankind. 
He  is  the  Revealer,  and  not  the  rival,  of  God.  In  His 
Cross  He  confessed  and  satisfied  the  holiness  of  God 
in  a  way  so  intimate,  so  absolute,  that  it  was  also  the 
radical  exposure  of  sin  in  all  its  sinfulness,  and  thus 
it  became  its  destruction.  If  the  sinless  could  not 
confess  sin.  He  exposed  it.  He  could,  and  did,  confess 
the  holiness  which  throws  sin  into  complete  expo- 
sure and  ruin.  The  divine  morality,  established 
in  the  hoUness  of  the  Atoning  Cross,  is  the  true 
source  of  our  modem  ethicizing  of  theology  and  our 
future  ethicizing  of  society.  Christ's  work  was 
not  to  proclaim  forgiveness  in  the  loftiest,  kindest, 
amplest  way.  Others  did  that.  Israel  did  that — 
not  indeed  as  a  people,  but  in  its  elect  and  inner 
self  as  a  Messiah  people.  But  Christ  brought  for- 
giveness as  the  Son  of  God  alone  could,  as  God  for- 
giving, as  forgiveness  incarnate,  as  one  actually  re- 
deeming and  not  offering  redemption,  as  the  divine 
destroyer  of  guilt,  as  the  Eternal  Salvation  in  God 
made  historic  and  visible.     Christianity  is  a  media- 


2  54   Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

tonal  religion  always.  Always,  through  all  Eternity, 
Jesus  Christ  is  our  Mediator  with  the  Father.  The 
mediation  of  Christ  belongs  to  the  perennial  nature 
of  communion  with  God,  and  not  merely  to  a 
historic  point  of  our  religion.  We  are  sons  al- 
ways only  in  Him  who  was  Son  in  none.  We  are 
the  sons  of  God's  Grace,  He  alone  is  the  Son  of  His 
love.  God's  relation  to  him  is  not  the  matter  of 
grace  it  must  be  for  every  one  of  us  forgiven 
sinners.  His  place  with  God  is  by  nature  and 
absolute  right.  He  was  and  ever  is  the  Son  that 
I  must  become  through  him.  And  His  absolute 
Sonship  became  effective  and  historic  in  the  con- 
summation of  the  Cross. 

When  we  say  that  the  Cross  is  a  Gospel  of  holy 
love,  gracious  to  human  sin,  we  mean  that  the  first 
concern  of  Christ  was  with  God  and  not  with  man. 
It  was  with  God's  holiness,  and  its  accentuation 
of  man's  sin.  He  poured  out  His  soul  unto  death, 
not  to  impress  man  but  to  confess  God.  Therefore 
He  impresses  man  infinitely,  inexhaustibly.  There 
is  nothing  that  makes  sin  so  terrible  as  its  full  exhi- 
bition before  God  by  God's  own  holiness,  by  His  own 
holy  one ;  in  whom  the  holiness  goes  out  as  love, 
suffers  the  judgment,  and  redeems  as  grace.  Love 
is  only  divine  because  it  is  holy  love.  And  only  as 
holy  does  it  elicit  the  faith  that  has  all  love  latent 
in  it.  It  is  in  this  holiness  of  God  that  all  our  faith 
and  all  our  theology  begin.  It  is  this  that  must  per- 
petually exalt  them,  and  correct  them,  and  moralize 
them,  and   infuse  them  with  passion,  compassion, 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern   255 

imagination  and  majesty.  All  the  reconstruction 
of  belief  must  begin  with  the  holiness  of  God.  All 
the  recovery  of  faith  from  mere  religion  must  be 
brought  about  by  His  holiness.  And  when  we  come 
to  speak  of  God's  love,  and  ask  how  it  should  differ 
from  the  benignities  of  ideal  gods,  or  nature  gods, 
how  it  should  celestialize  human  love,  the  answer 
is  the  same.  It  is  as  holy  love.  It  is  as  the  love 
is  in  the  Cross.  The  purity  of  the  speculative  idea 
faUs  short,  in  practical  religion,  of  the  holiness  in 
the  Cross.  It  is  ethereal  rather  than  divine,  and 
sublimated  more  than  sublime.  Herein  is  love, 
not  that  we  loved  who  easily  forgo  propitiation, 
but  that  He  loved,  who  so  loved  as  to  make  His 
own  unsparing  propitiation  under  the  conditions  of 
judgment.  Herein  is  love,  not  as  we  love,  but  as  He 
loves  who  loves  His  holy  name  before  all  His  children. 
His  holy  name  before  all  His  prodigals,  and  therefore 
spared  not  even  His  only  Son.  Herein  is  our  salvation 
as  sure  and  perennial  as  the  holiness  for  which  we 
are  saved.  And  love  is  thus  sure,  because  it  is  the  holy 
foundation  of  the  real,  the  moral  world. 

§ 

3.  Christianity  is  a  Gospel  of  Chrisfs  resurrection. 
The  same  Jesus  who  died  also  rose,  and  lives  as  the 
King  of  heavenly  Glory  and  Lord  of  human  destiny. 
The  fact  that  He  rose,  and  that  He  rose,  is  the  main 
matter ;  it  is  not  the  manner  of  it,  or  its  circum- 
stances. The  point  is  that  the  same  continuous  per- 
sonality that  mastered  life  during  life  in  death  also 


2^6   Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

triumphed  over  death,  appeared  to  sundry  in  that 
victory,  and  Uves  in  its  full  power  and  glory  for  us 
evermore.  The  Son  of  God,  in  heavenly  power  and 
glory  now,  was  and  is  our  dear,  real,  earthly  Jesus. 
The  physical  conditions  are  subordinate.  The  empty 
tomb  I  would  leave  a  question  as  open  as  the  Virgin 
Birth.  ^  I  believe  the  tomb  was  emptied — else  the  body 
would  have  been  produced  to  refute  the  apostles. 
But,  even  if  it  had  not  been,  the  crucified  body 
was  not  the  redeeming  person.  And  God  could 
prepare,  and  Christ  could  take,  for  His  purposes  a 
body  as  it  pleased  Him. 

The  mistake  we  make  here,  especially  in  preaching, 
is  in  treating  the  Resurrection  of  Christ  as  evidence 
to  the  world,  as  a  proof,  instead  of  an  exercise,  of 
His  divine  power.  The  evidential  value  of  miracles 
is  quite  gone.  As  has  been  said,  "  instead  of  the 
miracles  helping  faith  it  takes  all  our  faith  to  help  us 
to  believe  the  miracles."  It  is  a  misuse  of  miracle 
to  make  it  evidentiary.     None  of  Christ's  miracles 

^  Nothing  would  more  help  us  to  find  where  we  are,  and 
to  deal  faithfully  with  our  crypto-unitarianism,  than  to 
realize  that  our  real  difference  with  the  Socinians  is  not 
as  to  the  Virgin  Birth  (which  is  irrelevant  to  the  Incarna- 
tion) but  as  to  the  Atonement.  The  locus  of  the  issue  is 
not  the  cradle  but  the  cross.  It  is  where  it  was  with  the 
first  Socinianism — a  question  as  to  the  standing  need  and 
conditions  of  forgiveness,  whether  forgiveness  is  the  one 
gift,  the  one  all-inclusive  gift  of  God  in  Christ  (Rom.  viii. 
32).  The  Unitarian  issue  is  the  Evangelical.  It  is  a 
question  as  to  the  Gospel  in  its  true  and  Pauline  sense. 
In  a  very  true  sense  the  issue  of  the  hour  is  less  about 
Jesus  than  about  Paul. 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern   257 

were  so  used  by  Him  (in  the  Synoptics  at  least). 
Indeed,  He  did  His  best  to  hush  them  up.  He 
always  refused  them  as  a  sign.  They  were  pure, 
almost  irrepressible,  acts  of  real  pity  and  help. 
They  were  not  advertisements  ;  they  were  not  - 
credentials.  They  were  not  given  to  unfaith, 
but  to  faith.  They  were  no  mere  exhibitions 
of  power.  Christ  was  not  thaumaturgic.  He 
was  no  impressionist.  He  would  never  coerce 
faith.  The  reaction  against  miracle  is  largely  a 
protest  against  our  un-Christlike  abuse  of  it. 
We  have  given  it  a  wrong  place,  a  place  which  Christ 
would  not  allow  it  to  have,  even  for  His  contempo- 
raries. And  we  do  not  erase  miracles,  therefore, 
when  we  restore  them  to  their  true  and  blessed 
place    for  faith. 

The  resurrection  of  Christ,  is  thus  not  evi- 
dential, but  it  is  real.  It  is  not  the  surest  thing 
in  scientific  history,  but  it  is  an  essential  fact  to 
Christian  faith.  It  gave  faith  back  its  Lord.  It 
roused  faith  to  know  itself  and  its  Master.  The 
apostles  did  not  critically  examine  the  evidence 
for  the  resurrection  ;  they  hailed  the  risen  Lord. 
It  was  not  a  resurrection  that  impressed  them,  but 
a  returned  Saviour.  The  matter  of  moment  is  the 
reahty  of  the  risen  Lord,  the  identity  of  the  Christ 
now  in  heaven  with  the  Jesus  of  the  finished  victory 
in  the  Cross.  The  great  thing  is  the  power  given 
to  believers  to  say  and  feel  with  real  meaning 
that  they  are  in  Christ  and  Christ  in  them.  It 
is  to  reahze  that  the  victorious  Jesus  was   seen   of 


258    Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

many,  and  was  in  converse  with  them  ;  that  as 
Christ,  He  still  rules  the  Kingdom  He  set  up ;  and 
that  (if  He  endure  at  all)  He  is  not  sitting  apart, 
solemnly  superannuate  like  a  retired  and  cloistered 
emperor,  and  watching,  with  only  a  founder's  in- 
terest, the  progress  of  the  realm  which  once  He  set 
going  but  which  now  runs  of  itself.  Nay,  but  He 
watches  the  Kingdom  as  the  King  who  ever  rules. 
And  the  Kingdom  will  never  be  but  what  He  is 
continually  making  it. 


II.  But  now  what  has  a  modernized  theology 
to  offer  in  the  way  of  recognizing  modern  principles 
as  well  as  in  the  way  of  preaching  its  own  ?  ^ 

I.  Ever  since  the  Reformation  Protestantism  has 
grown  in  the  recognition  of  one  modern  principle 
which  it  did  so  much  to  create — the  freedom  of  the 
individual  from  external  authority.  Whether  that 
authority  be  Bible,  Church,  or  Dogma,  merely  as 
such,  faith  renounces  them  all.  The  Bible  is  no  code 
of  either  precept  or  belief.  It  is  not  a  doctrinal  pro- 
tocol. The  Word  of  God  is  in  the  Bible,  as  the 
soul  is  in  the  body.  The  one  authority  is  the  grace 
of  the  Bible  speaking  to  the  soul  of  man.  That  is 
to  say,  the  one  authority  is  the  Gospel  not  only  in 
the  soul  and  speaking  to  the  soul,  but  making  the 
soul.  It  is  a  spiritual,  practical,  creative  authority. 
It  is  not  prescriptive.  To  be  sure,  it  is  an  autho- 
rity which  acts  under  psychological  conditions, 
1  I  still  make  free  use  of  Kaftan's  essay. 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern   259 

which  conditions  alone  psychology  is  competent 
to  explore.  But  with  the  sanctions  of  that  autho- 
rity no  science  is  competent  to  deal,  either  in 
challenge  or  support.  The  idea  of  authority  is 
not  destroyed  because  it  ceases  to  be  external. 
Because  it  ceases  to  be  external  it  does  not  cease 
to  be  objective,  to  be  presented  to  consciousness 
and  not  produced  from  it.  The  moral  law  which 
hounds  the  sinner  is  nothing  external,  but  it  is  fear- 
fully, inevitably,  objective.  And  the  Gospel  that 
saves  is  no  less  objective  and  authoritative  than 
the  law  that  damns.  Its  voice  may  be  inward  and 
private.  But  these  inner  voices  are  what  make 
the  real  authority  ;  when  the  soul  is  spoken  to  by 
another  who  is  its  own  other.  There  is  no  voice 
so  poignant  in  condemnation  as  the  voice  that  is 
dear.  Remorse  is  more  than  half  the  grief  of 
many  a  decent  widower.  There  is  no  judgment 
so  serious  as  that  of  our  kin,  the  judgment  of 
love.  The  most  terrible  accusers  of  the  culprit's 
crime  are  the  children  it  brands  and  who  never 
upbraid.  The  law  of  Society  bears  so  closely  upon 
us  because  we  ourselves  are  not  insulated  wills  but 
products  of  the  same  society  that  made  the  law. 
And  there  is  no  authority  so  ubiquitous,  and  there- 
fore so  objective,  as  the  Word  of  God  that  emerges 
in  the  colloquy  or  conflict  of  the  soul  God  made. 
It  is  quite  true  that  a  huge  problem  is  set  to  the 
Gospel  in  the  present  moral  anarchy  of  western 
civilization.  We  have  not  yet  found  for  society  the 
Word  which  the  individual  freely  finds,  the  Word 


2  6o   Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

to  replace  for  the  public  the  external  authority  of 
the  medieval  Church.  But  so  long  as  the  individual 
is  made  to  find  that  Word  for  himself  in  the  historic 
Gospel,  there  need  be  no  fear  that  Society  will 
not  find  it  in  due  course  for  purposes  of  public 
control. 


2.  A  second  great  modern  idea  is  here  suggested 
which  profoundly  affects  the  type  of  our  Christian 
faith — the  social  idea.  We  always  have  been  greatly 
affected  by  the  social  idea  in  the  shape  of  the  Church. 
Our  Christian  theology  has  been  developed  as  the 
intelligent  expression  on  the  face  of  a  living  Church. 
It  has  been  in  vital  connexion  with  the  consciousness 
of  a  living  society.  No  church,  no  theology.  But 
it  is  also  becoming  amenable  to  the  form  and  pres- 
sure of  a  society  wider  though  not  greater — civil 
society ;  and  especially  in  respect  of  its  weak. 
The  Brotherhood  in  the  deep  Christian  sense  be- 
comes much  affected  by  the  Brotherhood  in  the 
broad  humane  sense.  In  the  past  the  strength 
of  Society  has  much  moulded  Christian  thought 
and  institutions.  The  Holy  Empire,  the  dynas- 
ties, the  philosophies  have  all  been  shaping  powers. 
The  ablest  jurisprudence  at  one  time  much  coloured 
the  theology  of  atonement,  for  instance.  But  now 
the  weakness  and  need  of  Society  exert  more 
and  more  the  modifying  pressure.  The  appeal 
from  the  helpless,  the  passion  of  pity,  affects  the 
whole    frame    of    Cliiistian    method,    institution, 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern    261 

ethic,  and  even  thought,  in  a  growing  way.  It 
bears  home  to  us  the  fact  that  every  single  soul  is 
saved  in  an  act  which  was  the  organic  salvation, 
the  salvation  into  a  kingdom,  of  the  whole  race. 
We  are  not  really  saved  if  we  are  saved  into  neglect 
of  a  social  salvation.  The  Gospel  preached  to  the 
soul  must  be  a  Gospel  which  leaves  the  saved  soul 
much  more  concerned  than  he  used  to  be  about  the 
saving  of  civilization,  the  salvation  of  the  just 
as  well  as  of  the  lost,  and  the  restoration  of  the  poor 
as  well  as  of  the  wicked.  There  are  very  great 
social  changes  involved  in  the  modernization  of 
our  theology  which  is  now  going  on.  Christian 
truth  must  be  socialized  by  the  same  power  as 
socializes  Christian  wealth.  And  it  ought  in  fair- 
ness to  be  added  that  medieval  theology  was  much 
more  social  than  Protestantism  has  been  except 
on  its  Calvinistic  side.  It  was  far  more  social  than 
our  debased  and  individualized  Calvinism.  It  is 
easy  to  see  why  Catholicism,  Anglican  or  Roman, 
whose  golden  age  was  the  medieval,  should  be 
more  socialist  than  current  Protestantism. 


3.  There  is  aiiother  point  where  the  ethicizing 
of  Christianity  has  been  greatly  affected  by  modern 
thought — the  rescue  of  personality  from  individimUsm  - 
the  socializing  of  its  idea.  The  influence  is  social, 
but  it  comes  from  the  psychological  side.  It  pro- 
ceeds first  from  that  growth  of  the  principle  of 
personality  which    has  been  mainly  promoted  by 


262    Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

Christianity.     Christ  is  certainly  no  less  concerned 
than   Nietsche  that  the  personality  should  receive 
the    fullest    development    of  which  it   is   capable, 
and  be  more  and   more  of  a   power.     The  differ- 
ence between  them  lies    in  the  moral  method  by 
which  the  personality  is  put  into  possession  of  itself 
and  its  resources — in  the  one  case  by  asserting  self 
in  the    other  by    losing    it ;    in  the  one    case   by 
self -pleasing,    in    the    other   by    self-renunciation. 
Christianity  is  interested  in  the  first  degree  in  the 
modern  emphasis  on  personality,  because  it  is  its 
chief   creator.     But   the   influence   I   allude   to   is 
more  than  that.     It  lies,  secondly,  in  the  conviction 
that  the  strength  of  personality,  after  an  early  stage, 
is   damaged   by   the  mere   force    of   individualism, 
and  is  a  social  product.     Personality  does  not  come 
into  the  world  with  us  ready  made,  but  it  has  a 
history  and  a    growth.     Education  is    not  merely 
its   training,   it   is  its   creation.     In  all  of   us   the 
personality    is    incomplete  ;    and  it   misleads  us  in 
the  most  grave  way  when  we  use  it  as  an  analogy 
for    the   ever  complete   and    holy    personality    of 
God.       We   are  but  persons  in  the  making.      Per- 
sonality is  created  by  social  influences,   and  finds 
itself  only  in  these.     We  complete  our  personality 
only  as  we  fall  into  place  and  service  in  the  vital 
movement  of  the  society  in  which  we  live.      Isola- 
tion means  arrested  development.     The   aggressive 
egotist  is  working  his  own  moral  destruction   by 
stunting  and  shrinking  his  true  personality.     Social 
life,  duty,  and  sympathy,  are  the  only  conditions 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern   263 

under  which  a  true  personality  can  be  shaped. 
And  if  it  be  asked  how  a  society  so  crude,  imperfect, 
unmoral,  and  even  immoral  as  that  in  which  we 
live  is  to  mould  a  personality  truly  moral,  it  is  here 
that  Christ  comes  to  the  rescue  with  the  gift  to 
faith  both  of  an  active  Spirit  and  of  a  society 
complete  in  Himself,  which  in  Him  is  none  of  these 
evil  things,  the  society  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  which 
plays  a  part  so  great  in  the  modern  construction 
of  the  Gospel.  We  are  saved  only  in  a  salvation 
which  set  up  a  kingdom,  and  did  not  merely  set  it 
on  foot.  We  have  the  Kingdom  not  with  Christ 
but  in  Christ.  Do  not  leave  Christ  out  of  the 
Kingdom,  as  if  He  were  detachable  from  it  like  any 
common  king.  The  individual  is  saved  only  in  this 
social  salvation.  And  the  more  you  insist  that  a 
soul  can  only  be  saved,  and  a  personality  secured, 
by  Christ's  finished  work,  the  more  you  must  con- 
tend that  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  not  merely  coming 
but  is  come,  and  is  active  in  the  Spirit  among  us 
now.  There  is  the  closest  connexion,  if  not  identity, 
when  you  go  deep  enough,  between  the  theology 
of  salvation  and  the  moral  principles  of  social 
regeneration.  The  principle  of  our  salvation  is 
the  principle  of  human  ethic,  not  only  of  private, 
as  has  long  been  seen,  but  of  public  ethic,  as  we 
now  come  to  see.  A  great  economist  has  lately 
traced  in  an  original  and  masterly  way  the  vital 
connexion  between  the  ethic  of  Calvinism  and 
modem  economics.  To  dismiss  the  moral  necessity 
for  God  of  Christ's  Cross  is,  in  the  long  run,  to  banish 


264   Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

moral  principles  from  public  affairs ;  since  the  greatest 
public  affair  in  history  would  then  have  in  it  no 
causation  in  the  eternal  and  immutable  morality 
of  the  universe. 

§ 

4.  With  the  modern  stress  laid  by  Christianity 
upon  a  kingdom,  we  must  recognize  the  distinction 
so  marked  in  recent  thought  ever  since  Kant  between 
theoretical  and  practical  knowledge,  and  we  must  fall 
in  with  the  modern  stress  on  the  latter.  Ethic  is  a  far 
mightier  matter  than  science,  and  Christian  experi- 
ence a  far  more  precious  thing  than  Christian 
correctitude.  We  move  to  a  Gospel  of  act  and 
experience,  which  in  the  long  run  is  independent  of 
either  philosophy  or  criticism.  The  real  Gospel  of 
the  Cross  is  beyond  either.  In  the  strict  sense  of 
the  word  theology,  that  too  is  immune.  For  it 
rests  on  the  contact  of  indubitable  history  (vizJ 
Christ's  Person  and  Cross)  with  present  experience. 
What  is  vulnerable  is  a  theosophy,  a  secondary 
theology  which  has  grown  up  round  experimental 
theology,  and  is  largely  drawn  from  cosmic  or 
juristic  speculation.  These  speculations  are,  of 
course,  bound  to  arise.  For  the  more  free  we  are 
in  the  practical  experience  of  our  positive  Gospel, 
the  more  freely  we  discuss  and  appropriate  from 
the  theoretic  world.  The  more  sure  we  are  in  our 
positive  Gospel,  the  less  we  are  tempted  to  try  to 
control  and  manipulate  philosophy  so  as  to  take 
the  danger  out  of  it.     But  it  is  by  no  philosophy  or 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern   265 

theosophy  that  we  stand  or  fall.  A  man  speculates 
with  a  free  judgment  if  he  is  not  speculating  with 
the  capital  which  means  his  livelihood.  And  so  we 
have  a  new  liberty  for  thought  in  the  primacy  of 
the  moral,  and  the  certainty  of  our  moral  redemp- 
tion in  experience. 

And  we  are  not  only  free  to  go  on  from  that 
standpoint  to  be  occupied  with  the  interpretation 
of  the  world.  We  must  so  go  on.  The  faith  that 
makes  us  free  is  the  faith  of  a  universal,  nay  a 
cosmic,  redemption.  The  truths  and  questions  of 
science  are  not  freaks  or  hobbies,  arbitrary  or 
gratuitous.  They  are  necessary  and  inevitable. 
They  rise  from  Hfe,  from  actual  contact  with  the 
world.  They  present  real  life  to  us  in  certain  aspects. 
They  represent  not  only  the  objective  wodd,  but 
the  objective  world  as  it  emerges  in  human 
experience,  in  human  consciousness  and  will.  The 
philosophy  which  cannot  license  us  yet  does  enrich 
us.  It  does  not  give  us  our  grasp,  but  it  enlarges 
it.  It  does  not  give  us  a  footing,  but  it  does  give 
a  horizon. 

I  venture  to  say,  therefore,  that  that  separation 
of  the  theoretical  and  the  practical  (with  the  stress 
on  the  latter)  which  has  been  so  influential  ever 
since  Kant,  and  rises  again  with  Neo-Kantianism, 
Pragmatism,  and  Activism  hke  Eucken's,  is  a 
principle  of  great  value  both  for  the  certainty  and 
the  freedom  of  our  Christian  faith  in  contact  with 
the  world.  The  more  we  are  secured  in  our  practi- 
cal experience  of  the  Gospel,  the  more  we  are  free 


2  66   Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

to  listen  to  all  representations  from  philosophy  or 
science  in  shaping  to  a  doctrine  our  capacious  life 
with  Christ  in  God. 

All  this  means  that  our  theology  must  be  ethicized. 
It  must  be  framed  with  more  regard  to  the  practical 
than  to  the  speculative  ideals  of  life  and  faith. 
To  modernize  theology  it  must  be  ethicized,  but 
more  from  the  revelation  of  God's  holiness  in  the 
Cross  than  from  the  progress  of  natural  or  social 
ethic,  however  refined. 


'  5.  Christianity  in  being  ethicized,  is  popularized. 
The  classical  and  pagan  view  of  the  world  was 
theoretic.  It  would  solve  the  great  riddle  intel- 
lectually. But  this  was  possible  for  the  few  alone. 
It  was  the  work  of  experts.  But  when  the  problem 
is  that  of  the  conscience,  it  concerns  us  all.  It  is 
accessible  to  all,  nay,  it  presses  on  all.  The  great 
'issue  is  not  being  thought  out,  it  is  being  lived  out, 
loved  out,  worked  out,  and  fought  out.  The  power  for 
life  concerns  all,  the  scheme  of  life  but  a  few.  The 
whole  reality  of  life  is  on  its  moral  side,  and  that 
is  the  side  which  the  Gospel  appeals  to,  and  so  it 
appeals  to  all.  The  last  stand  of  the  Gospel  is 
in  the  whole  reality  of  practical  life,  individual 
and  social,  in  homes,  marts,  senates,  and  Churches. 
It  is  not  in  the  schools.  It  is  only  paganism 
(whether  Haeckel's  or  Hegel's)  that  rests  in  the  self- 
sufficiency  of  thought  or  the  idea.  The  Gospel  is  the 
jijoral,  the  universal,  the  final  interpretation  of  life, 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern   267 

Christ  came  not  with  a  reading  of  life  but  with  its  re- 
demption, not  with  the  answer  to  a  riddle  but  with 
the  solution  of  a  practical  problem.  He  did  not 
come  with  a  body  of  new  truth,  but  with  a 
power  of  new  reality,  not  with  the  profoundest 
knowledge  but  with  Eternal  Life. 

§ 
6.  I  need  hardly  include  among  the  marks  of  a 
modern  Christianity  the  extent  to  which  its  whole 
outlook  has  been  modified  by  the  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion, and  especially  historic  evolution.  This  might 
almost  go  without  saying.  Even  the  Roman  Church 
has  recognized  it,  and  the  line  of  its  apologetic  has 
been  profoundly  changed  by  its  doctrine  of  develop- 
ment as  formulated  by  Mohler  and  Newman.  First 
the  blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full  com  in  the  ear. 
Protestantism  has  recognized  the  principle  more 
fully  still.  Dr.  Adams  Brown,  in  the  most  able 
outhne  of  Theology  which  we  now  possess  in  English, 
has  said  that  the  three  types  of  Christianity  usually 
given — the  Greek,  Roman,  and  Protestant — should 
be  extended  by  dividing  the  latter  into  two — the 
Reformation  type  and  the  modem  type ;  because 
the  difference  between  these  two  is  as  great  as  that 
between  the  Greek  and  the  Roman  type.  And  he 
notes  as  the  destinctive  feature  of  modern  Pro- 
testantism the  effect  of  this  doctrine  of  evolution. 
{Outlines  of  Theology,  p.  62  n.).  There  are  other 
features,  as  I  venture  to  point  out ;  and  I  should 
myself  lay  more  stress  on  the  new  ethical  note. 


2  68    Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

But  the  evolutionary  idea  is  especially  attractive 
to  a  scientific  age.  We  have  certainly  no  quarrel 
with  that  idea  till  it  is  lifted  from  being  a  method 
and  elevated  into  a  dogma — indeed  the  dogma  ;  till 
it  is  treated  as  a  vera  causa,  and  made  to  explain 
not  simply  the  mode  of  change  but  the  principle  of 
change,  the  germinating  principle  of  the  seed  as  well 
as  the  phases  of  its  process.  It  is  a  philosophy 
which  explains  much,  and  makes  us  patient  of  much, 
and  hopeful  of  more.  But  it  cannot  give  us  hope 
in  the  Christian  and  certain  sense.  Because  it  can- 
not give  us  the  goal  of  its  own  movements  any 
more  than  their  real  cause.  And  a  religion  has 
to  do  rather  with  the  source  and  the  goal  than 
with  the  path,  with  the  meaning  rather  than  the 
method.  We  must  welcome  the  new  force  given 
by  this  theory  to  many  a  word  of  Christ,  and 
many  a  movement  of  the  Spirit.  It  is  really  not 
evolution  we  have  to  watch,  but  the  Monism  which 
is  so  often  supposed  to  be  inseparable  from  it  by 
those  who  have  more  science  than  philosophy,  more 
imagination  than  either,  little  ethical  insight,  and 
theology  least  of  all. 

The  whole  attitude  of  the  Church  to  its  truth  has 
been  altered  by  the  destruction  though  evolution  of 
the  idea  of  a  final  system  of  belief,  or  a  monopohst 
form  of  polity.  Its  intellectual  hospitality  has  been 
indefinitely  extended.  And  it  is  free,  with  a  large 
liberty,  from  a  burden  too  great  for  even  faith  to 
bear.  It  can  regard  the  new  philosophies  as  helpers 
so  long  as  they  do  not  claim  to  be  suzerains,  so  long 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern   269 

as  they  do  not  aspire  to  prescribe  belief  but  only  to 
enrich  it,  to  correct  its  statement,  and  to  enhance 
its  scope.  They  help  to  place  us  in  a  new  relation  of 
mastery  and  ease  to  the  Bible  and  the  stage  which  the 
Bible  registers.  And  they  give  us  a  new  grasp  of  the 
long  action  of  the  Spirit  and  its  way  with  the  Church 
and  the  world.  The  more  subtle  and  plastic  the 
Spirit,  the  mightier  and  more  irresistible  is  its  action. 
And  the  less  monumental  our  Christ  is,  in  a  stiff 
Byzantine  figure,  the  more  pervasive  He  is  as  a 
constant  and  subduing  power.  When  evolution 
escapes  from  the  bondage  of  the  physical  sciences, 
and  its  mesalliance  with  monistic  dogma,  it  is 
a  distinguished  badge  and  blessing  of  a  modem 
Church.  Only  let  it  be  taken  as  a  supplement  to 
creation,  and  not  as  a  substitute  for  redemption,  and 
it  gives  a  wonderful  flexibihty  and  grace  to  much 
theological  thought  that  once  was  formal  and  hard. 


7.  Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  the  modem 
mind  than  its  passion  for  reaUty.  It  is  a  passion 
that  takes  all  sorts  of  extravagant,  and  some 
noxious,  forms.  But  it  is  a  worthy  instinct.  And 
it  is  a  demand  that  ehcits  the  moral  reaUsm,  the 
unsparing  spiritual  thoroughness,  of  the  Gospel. 
Hence  the  Gospel  not  only  tolerates,  it  demands,, 
science  and  criticism.  If  it  can  succumb  to  these 
it  should.  The  criticism  may  be  the  moral  caustic 
applied  to  Christian  society  by  an  Ibsen,  or  it  may 
be  the  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Bible  or  the  creeds 


2']o  Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

by  the  schools.  Our  treasure  in  Bible  or  Church  is 
in  an  earthen  vessel  which  is  fairly  exposed  to  the 
critic.  And  especially  historic  criticism  touches  us, 
as  we  have  the  water  only  in  the  historic  vessel. 
But  every  historic  phenomenon,  in  so  far  as  it  is 
historic,  must  admit  criticism,  and  stand  the  test  of 
that  reahty.  Be  it  book  or  creed,  or  even  Christ  Him- 
self so  far  as  He  is  a  historic  personality — we  cannot 
seclude  them  from  competent  criticism.  But  then 
the  historic  Jesus  is  no  mere  historic  figure.  Even 
in  so  far  as  He  is  historic,  as  the  object  of  our  faith 
He  is,  though  not  immune  from  critical  action,  yet 
secure.  For  the  living  person  of  Christ  stands,  and 
its  consummation  on  the  Cross,  and  its  continued 
life  in  our  experience.  And  that  is  where  our  real 
faith  is  fixed — on  the  finished  redeeming  work  of 
the  Saviour  on  the  Cross,  sealed  indeed  in  the 
resurrection  but  finished  on  the  Cross,  published  in 
the  resurrection  but  achieved  on  the  Cross.  That 
is  faith's  reahty,  the  reality  that  faith  knows.  No 
criticism  can  shake  that  if  it  be  thoroughly 
settled  into  our  experience.  From  that  vantage 
ground  we  recognize  the  rights  of  criticism  because 
we  are  in  a  position  to  deny  its  rule.  That  Jesus 
we  cannot  criticize  either  historically  or  morally. 
For  we  cannot  criticize  our  Judge  and  our  Re- 
deemer. We  can  criticize  His  knowledge  about  the 
Old  Testament  and  the  like,  but  we  cannot  criticize 
his  ownership  of  our  souls.  He  is  for  us  the  last 
reality,  which  enables  us  to  criticize  all  else.  His 
saints  shall  judge  the  world. 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern   271 


III.  Thus  it  is  not  with  a  critical  issue  we  have 
really  to  do,  it  is  with  a  dogmatic.  And  this  I  ask 
your  leave  to  explain. 

The  question  of  recent  criticism  and  its  effect  on 
your  Gospel  will  often  arise  in  your  mind,  or  it  will 
be  put  to  you  by  others.  And  unless  you  found 
on  the  true  rock  it  may  cost  you  much  trouble  and 
pain. 

You  will  be  wise  if  you  keep  it  out  of  your  preach- 
ing. That  is  to  say,  do  not  preach  much  about  it. 
Preach  as  men  who  know  about  it.  Preach  habitually 
neither  its  methods  nor  its  results,  but  preach  a  Gospel 
which  has  taken  due  account  of  both.  The  Christ  we 
have  to  declare  is  neither  a  residuum  which  the  critics 
are  pleased  to  leave  us,  nor  an  asbestos  quite  unaffected 
by  the  fire.  What  criticism  acts  on  is  the  Bible,  the 
record.  And,  closely  as  Christ  is  bound  up  with  the 
Bible,  He  is  more  closely  bound  up  with  the  Gospel 
than  with  the  Bible.  When  it  becomes  a  religious 
question,  that  is,  a  question  of  the  Gospel,  criticism 
takes  quite  a  secondary  place,  and,  in  cases,  may 
even  be  irrelevant.  The  matter  then  ceasing  to 
turn  on  facts,  but  turning  on  a  living  person,  passes 
into  the  hands  of  the  believer,  and  through  him 
to  the  theologian.     It  is  a  dogmatic  question. 


Take  the  case  of  the  Bible  itself  for  instance.     The 
momentous  question  does  not  concern  its  mode  of 


272   Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

origin,  its  provenance,  its  constituent  parts,  authors, 
dates.  It  does  not  concern  the  equal  value  for  historic 
science  of  every  portion,  or  for  theological  truth  of 
every  thought  it  contains.     It  is  a  question  of  a 

— special  and  real  revelation  from  God  to  the  conscience. 
Have  we  here,  on  the  whole,  the  effective  history 
of  redemption  ?     It  is  not  the  history  of  Israel,  or  the 

'—biography  of  Christ,  that  the  Bible  exists  to  give. 
Its  history  is  the  history  of  grace,  the  exposition  of  a 
long  action  and  a  final  act  of  grace.  And,  as  I  said 
at  the  outset,  it  is  history  not  of  a  scientific  but  of  a 
preached  kind.  It  is  a  kind  of  history,  and  an 
amount  of  history,  prescribed  by  the  practical  pur- 
pose of  conveying  the  grace  of  God.  It  is  sacra- 
mental history.  It  is  broken  bread — such  portions 
of  history  as  form  sacramental  elements,  adequate 
for  the  spiritual  purpose  in  hand.  It  does  not  exist 
primarily  to  instruct  us  about  God,  but  to  convey 
God  to  us.  The  New  Testament  is  not  a  mere 
monument  of  the  first  century.  Nor,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  it  a  mere  book  of  devotion.  Revelation 
is  not  there  to  convey  theology,  nor  to  elevate 
piety,  but  to  convey  God  Himself.  It  is  His  self- 
revelation,  which  means  His  self-communication. 
It  is  not  concerned  with  thought,  nor  with  mere 
hints  or  indications  of  His  action,  "  making  Him 
broken  gleams  in  a  stifled  splendour  and  gloom." 
These  you  find  in  other  religions.  In  a  looser  sense 
they  too  convey  revelations  of  God,  self-intimations 
of  God,  indications  of  His  presence.  His  thought. 
His  movement,  in  some  sort.   They  suggest  principles 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern    273 

which  Christ  reahzed  in  a  person.  But  we  want  more 
than  signs  of  God's  presence  and  movement.  We 
want  action  positive  and  final.  What  we  want  in  reve- 
lation is  God's  total  final  will,  His  purpose.  His  heart. 
His  central  and  final  self,  the  whole  counsel  of  God  in 
a  compendious  sense.  We  want  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion, not.  Is  He  here  ?  Is  He  accessible  ?  But,  What 
is  He  going  to  do  with  us  ?  What  is  He  doing 
with  us  and  for  us  ?  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ? 
And  that  is  the  question  put  and  answered,  once  for 
all,  in  the  Bible.  The  best  that  the  religion  of  nature 
does  for  us  is  to  wake  us  to  a  helpless  sense  of  the 
contradiction  and  crisis  in  which  we  are,  and  make 
us  feel  that  what  we  want  is  not  knowledge  but 
salvation.  So  that  while  in  other  religions  the 
element  uppermost  is  man  seeking  God,  in  Israel 
and  in  Christ  the  uppermost  thing  is  God  seeking 
man  and  finding  him  for  good  and  all.  But  in  all 
other  religions  God  and  man  are  seeking  each  other 
in  the  dark  ;    in  Christianity  they  find  each  other. 

We  need  fear  no  criticism  which  leaves  us  with 
that.  That  is  the  marrow  of  all  the  impossible  old 
theories  of  inspiration.  Their  object  was,  often  in 
very  unfortunate  ways,  to  secure  the  uniqueness,  the 
immediacy,  the  reality,  and  the  finality  of  God's  self- 
revelation  in  the  Bible.  Let  us  do  them  that  justice, 
even  against  themselves.  Let  us  try,  in  so  far  as  they 
survive,  to  get  their  advocates  to  see  that  if  they 
treat  the  Bible  with  respect,  we,  who  sympathize 
with  the  critical  method,  do  so  out  of  a  respect  greater 
still.     We  let  the  Bible  speak  for  itself.     The  great 

p.p.  18 


2  74   Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

question,  then,  as  to  the  Bible  is  not  about  the 
historic  impregnabihty  of  certain  detailed  facts  under 
the  full  fire  of  criticism.  It  is  a  question  whether 
the  record  as  a  whole  is  effective  and  sacramental, 
whether  we  have  the  history  of  a  special  movement 
and  action  of  God  for  our  redemption,  or  whether  we 
have  but  a  wonderful  exhalation  of  the  rehgious 
instinct  and  faculty  of  man.  It  is  really  a  dogmatic 
question.    'O  ©eo?  deoXoyi^eu 


So  much  for  the  Bible.  Now  it  is  so  in  a  like  manner 
with  Jesus  Christ.  The  great  question  is  dogmatic. 
It  is,  who  is  He  ?  What  did  He  do  ?  What  does 
He  do  ?  What  is  His  present  relation  to  us  and  to 
the  future  ?  Was  He  really  the  Son  of  God,  or  was 
He  but  the  choice  epitome  of  man  ?  Have  we  in 
Him  the  final  approach  and  self-bestowal  of  God, 
the  sempiternal  presence  and  final  action  of  the 
divine  reality  ;  or  have  we  a  distillation,  so  to  say, 
of  all  that  is  best  in  religious  humanity  ?  Was 
He  an  achievement  of  human  nature  to  make  us 
proud,  or  was  He  an  achievement  of  God's  nature 
on  our  race,  called  out  by  the  race's  deed  and  shame  ? 
His  work  was  an  act  of  sacrifice,  of  faith,  of  pity  and 
of  love — ^was  it  the  act  of  God  ?  Was  it  God  in 
action  ?  Was  He,  is  He,  the  true  Son  of  God,  for 
ever  Mediator  and  for  ever  Lord ;  or  was  He  just 
the  greatest  of  all  the  prophets,  apostles,  and  martyrs 
of  the  spiritual  life  ?  Do  we  possess  in  Him  God,  or 
a  messenger  from  God  ?     You  can  see  what  a  differ- 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern   275 

ence  must  be  made  in  our  preaching,  according  as 
we  answer  these  alternatives. 

Criticism  may  settle  that  Jesus  loved,  taught, 
blessed,  and  died.  It  may  decide  that  to  His  con- 
temporaries He  did  pass  for  one  who  performed 
miracles,  and  accepted  that  reputation  ;  that  He 
held  Himself,  rightly  or  wrongly,  to  be  directly  and 
uniquely  from  and  with  God,  in  the  sense  of  Matthew 
xi.  25  ff . ;  and  that  the  first  church  was  only  made 
possible,  historically,  by  its  belief  that  He  really 
rose  from  the  dead.  But  these  are  not  the  prime 
questions.  If  they  were,  our  faith  would  be  at  the 
mercy  of  the  critics.  The  great  question  is.  Did 
He  do  the  things  the  apostles  beUeved  ?  Was  He 
really  what  He  held  Himself  to  be  ?  These  claims 
and  beliefs  were  actual.  They  existed  as  claims 
and  beliefs.  The  claims  were  made,  the  beliefs  were 
held.  Were  they  real  and  vahd  ?  Could  He,  can  He, 
make  them  good  ?  Have  we  in  the  Jesus  who  so 
lived,  and  so  thought  both  of  Himself  and  God — ^have 
we  the  living  God  ?  And  do  we  have  Him  to-day 
as  living,  immortal,  royal,  redeeming  Lord  God  ? 
Was  He,  is  He,  of  Deity  ?  May  we  worship  Him  ? 
The  New  Testament  Church  did.  They  could  not 
help  it.  The  impression  left  on  them  was  such  that 
worship  was  a  psychological  necessity  quite  inevitable, 
quite  intelhgible,  quite  exphcable,  as  the  psychology 
of  religion  goes.  But  while  thus  inevitable  was  it 
really  illicit  ?  Was  it  an  extravagance  which  our 
better  knowledge  of  reality  must  correct  and  reduce  ? 
Must  we  beware  of  that  tendency  to  worship  Hin], 


276   Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

and  arrest  it  ?  Must  we  hear  His  own  voice  arrest- 
ing us,  ever  fainter  and  farther  as  time  goes  on, 
"  Why  do  you  call  Me  so  good  ?  Little  children, 
keep  yourselves  from  idols." 

Now,  the  answer  to  these  questions  is  not  critical 
but  dogmatic.  No  criticism  can  certify  us  of  these 
things,  and  therefore  no  criticism  can  take  certainty 
from  us.  The  man,  the  Church,  that  is  in  living 
intercourse  with  the  risen  Christ  is  in  possession  of  a 
fact  of  experience  as  real  as  any  mere  historic  fact,  or 
any  experience  of  reality,  that  the  critic  has  to  found 
on  and  make  a  standard.  And  with  that  experience,  a 
man  is  bound  to  approach  the  critical  evidence  of 
Christ's  resurrection  in  a  different  frame  of  mind  from 
the  merely  scientific  man  who  has  no  such  experience. 
This  makes  a  great  difference  for  criticism  between 
the  Old  Testament  and  the  New  Testament.  In  the 
Old  Testament  we  have  no  historic  character  with 
whom  we  are  in  daily  personal  relation  still,  and 
who  is  the  greatest  contemporary  of  every  age. 
The  fact  that  the  risen  Christ  appeared  only  to 
beHevers  is  of  immense  significance  ;  as  I  have  said, 
it  impairs  the  value  of  the  resurrection  as  proof 
to  the  sceptical  world,  and  defines  its  chief  value 
as  being  for  the  Church,  for  the  revival  of  faith, 
and  not  its  creation.  The  external  evidence  for 
it,  I  have  owned,  is  not  scientifically  complete,  nor, 
suppose  it  were,  is  the  bearing  of  the  fact  upon  the 
rational  world,  but  upon  the  believing  Church.  It 
did  not  found  redemption.  That  was  done  and 
finished  on  the  Cross,     But  it  founded  the  Church 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern   277 

as  a  historic  company,  by  the  resurrection  of 
its  faith  from  the  dead.  It  did  not  found  redemp- 
tion, but  it  put  God's  seal  on  the  completeness  of 
redemption,  and  it  launched  the  Church.  "  If 
our  knowledge  of  Christ  closed  with  the  grave,  I 
fear  no  faith  could  have  arisen  in  Christ's  victory 
over  death.  It  could  not  have  been  a  postulate 
from  the  outcome  of  His  early  action.  And  if  it 
had  it  would  have  been  too  weak  to  resist  doubt."  ^ 

The  Uving  Christ  who  died  has  destroyed  my  guilt, 
and  brought  me  God.  That  is  not  the  action  of  the 
resurrection  but  of  the  Cross.  I  believe  that  the  divine 
power  in  Him  which  wells  up  in  my  faith,  rather  than 
the  irrepressible  vitahty  of  His  divine  "  nature,"  is 
the  power  by  which  Christ  rose.  But  it  is  still  more 
the  power  by  which  He  gained  His  finished  victory  on 
the  Cross.  Without  the  primary  theology  of  the  Cross 
the  resurrection  of  Christ  would  have  no  more  value 
than  a  reanimation.  The  most  present  and  real 
fact  of  our  Christian  faith  is  the  fact  accessible  to 
faith  alone.  It  is  the  fact  that  Christ  has  brought  us 
God  and  destroyed  our  guilt.  You  do  not  yet  know 
the  inner  Christ  who  are  but  His  lovers  or  friends. 
You  need  to  have  been  His  patients  and  to  owe 
Him  your  Hfe.  That  is  Christianity.  A  Church 
without  that  experience  at  its  centre  is  not 
Christianity.  What  makes  a  Church  Christian  is 
not  the  historic  fact  of  His  death,  but  the  theological 
spiritual,  experimental  fact  that  His  death  meant 

1  Metzger  quoted  by  Reischle  Z.  f.  Th.  &  K.  vii.  205, 


278    Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

that,  and  did  that,  and  ever  does  it.  Where  there 
is  no  such  experience  it  is  hard,  if  not  impossible,  to 
convince  anybody  that  His  death  was  more  than 
the  close  of  His  hfe,  or  the  seahng  of  His  witness 
with  His  martyr  blood.  But  as  a  present  fact  that 
evangehcal  action  of  Christ's  death  is  far  more  real, 
and  therefore  more  effective,  with  us  than  the  death 
of  any  Jewish  martyr  at  Roman  hands  2,000  years 
ago.  Therefore  dogmatic  conviction  of  this  kind 
may  have  a  great  effect  on  criticism,  but  criticism 
has  only  a  minor  effect  upon  it.  We  may  be  led 
to  recast  some  of  our  ideas  as  to  the  historical 
conditions  amid  which  the  great  life  and  death 
transpired.  We  may  modify  much  in  our  views 
as  to  Christ's  omniscience,  and  similar  things  affected 
by  His  emptying  of  Himself.  He  accepted  some  of 
the  Hmitations  of  human  ignorance.  He  consented 
not  to  know,  with  a  nescience  divinely  wise.  The 
story  is  all  recorded  in  a  book,  and  therefore  literary 
criticism  has  its  rights.  Christ  worked  through 
history,  and  in  the  concretest  relation  to  the 
history  of  His  race  and  age  ;  and,  in  so  far  as  you 
have  history,  historic  criticism  has  its  rights.  Christ 
lived  a  real,  and  therefore  a  growing,  human  life, 
as  a  historic  personality.  Therefore,  being  in 
psychological  conditions.  He  is  amenable  so  far  to 
psychological  criticism.  But  allowing  for  all  such 
things,  the  question  remains  dogmatic.  Was  He,  is  He, 
what  Christian  faith  essentially  beheves  ?  Did  these 
convictions,  of  His  and  of  the  Church,  correspond 
to  reahty  ?    Was  He,  is  He,  in  God  what  He  thought 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern   279 

He  was,  and  what  He  was  held  to  be  ?  When  the 
first  Church  worshipped  Him  with  God's  name,  and 
set  Him  on  God's  throne,  were  they  a  new  race  of 
idolaters  ?  Was  his  influence  so  poor  in  quality 
that  it  could  not  protect  them  from  that  ?  He 
thought  Himself  redeemer  ;  did  He  really  redeem  ? 
Did  God  redeem  in  Him  ?  Was  God  the  real 
actor  in  His  saving  action  ?  These  are  the  ques- 
tions ;  and  in  all  such  questions,  criticism  is  ultra 
vires.  These  things  are  settled  in  another  and 
higher  court,  and  criticism  must  work  under  that 
settlement.  The  soundest  criticism  is  the  criticism 
by  a  believing  Church,  daily  living  on  the  Grace 
of  the  Cross  and  the  venture  of  faith. 

It  is  quite  true  that  these  truths  become  dogmas 
which,  in  their  statement,  are  fair  matter  for  criticism. 
The  theology  of  the  Church  is  not  a  closed  product  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  any  more  than  the  Bible  is  a  closed 
product  of  verbal  inspiration.  A  process  of  criticism, 
adjustment,  and  correction  has  always  been  going 
on.  Theology,  on  the  whole,  has  been  constantly 
modernized.  But  it  all  proceeds  on  the  basis  of  a 
reality  above  logic  and  beyond  criticism,  the  reality  of 
experienced  redemption  in  the  Cross,  of  faith's  know- 
ledge, and  the  Church's  communion  with  Christ.  It 
is  thus  something  within  dogma  itself  that  is  the  great 
corrective  of  dogma.  Christian  truth  in  a  Church 
carries  in  itself  the  conditions,  and  the  resources,  of  its 
own  self-preservation  through  self-correction.  The 
Church's  dogmatic  faith  is  the  great  corrective  of  the 
Church's  dogmatic  thought.     The  religious  life  in  a 


2  8o  Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

risen  and  royal  Redeemer  is  always  ahead  of  the  religi- 
ous thought  about  the  nature  and  method  of  Redemp- 
tion. The  old  faith  is  always  making  theology  new. 
The  true  critic  of  Christian  history  is  its  primary 
theology.  You  expected  me  perhaps  to  say  the  true 
critic  of  a  Christian  theology  is  its  history.  But  that 
is  now  a  commonplace.  I  meant  something  less 
obvious.  It  is  a  theological  Christ  we  have  cen- 
trally to  do  with — an  atoning  Christ.  And  it  is  only 
a  theological  Christ  that  we  need  take  immense 
pains  to  preserve  for  the  future.  It  is  that  piece 
of  experienced  theology,  an  atoning,  reconciling, 
redeeming  Christ,  that  has  made  all  the  rest  of 
theology.  And  it  must  therefore  be  its  living  test. 
With  historical  criticism,  simply  as  a  branch  of  exact 
science,  pursued  by  the  scholars,  and  taught  in 
the  schools,  you  have  as  preachers  only  a  minor 
concern.  You  may  take  it  up  as  you  might  any 
other  science,  only  as  your  nearest  pursuit.  But 
you  do  not  wait  on  it  for  your  message.  You 
must  deliver  that  message  while  the  critics  are  stiU 
at  war.  Christ  is  there  and  urgent,  whatever  is 
happening  to  the  story  of  Christ.  A  knowledge 
of  criticism  may  help  you  to  disengage  the  kernel 
from  the  husk,  to  save  the  time  so  often  lost  in  the 
defence  of  outposts,  to  discard  obsolete  weapons  and 
superfluous  baggage,  and  to  concentrate  on  the 
things  that  really  matter  for  eternal  life  and  godliness 
— like  the  Reconciliation  of  the  Cross.  All  true 
science  teaches  us  also  its  own  limits,  and  so  destroys 
its  own  tyranny.     But  the  real  criticism  with  which 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern   281 

we  have  to  do,  from  which  all  our  religion  starts 
when  we  take  the  whole  Christian  field  into  account, 
is  not  our  criticism  of  Christ,  but  Christ's  criticism 
of  us,  His  saving  judgment  of  us.  The  higher 
criticism  casts  us  on  the  highest.  There  is  a  second- 
ary theology  of  corollaries  from  faith,  and  there  is  a 
primary  of  faith's  essence.  To  handle  this  great 
and  primary  theology  the  first  condition  is  the  new 
man.  Our  most  judicious  thing  is  to  treat  Christ 
as  our  judge,  to  know  Him  as  we  are  first  known 
of  Him,  and  to  search  Him  as  those  who  are 
searched  to  the  marrow  by  His  subtle  Spirit. 

§ 

Might  I  venture  here  to  speak  of  myself,  and  of 
more  than  thirty  years  given  to  progressive  thought 
in  connexion,  for  the  most  part,  with  a  pulpit  and 
the  care  of  souls.  Will  you  forgive  me  ?  I  am 
addressing  young  men  who  have  the  ministry  before 
them,  as  most  of  mine  is  behind,  strewn  indeed 
with  mistakes,  yet  led  up  of  the  Spirit. 

There  was  a  time  when  I  was  interested  in  the 
first  degree  with  purely  scientific  criticism.  Bred 
among  academic  scholarship  of  the  classics  and 
philosophy,  I  carried  these  habits  to  the  Bible,  and 
I  found  in  the  subject  a  new  fascination,  in  pro- 
portion as  the  stakes  were  so  much  higher.  But, 
fortunately  for  me,  I  was  not  condemned  to  the 
mere  scholar's  cloistered  life.  I  could  not  treat 
the  matter  as  an  academic  quest.  I  was  kept 
close  to  practical  conditions.     I  was  in   a  relation 


282    Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

of  life,  duty,  and  responsibility  for  others.  I 
could  not  contemplate  conclusions  without  asking 
how  they  would  affect  these  people,  and  my  word 
to  them,  in  doubt,  death,  grief,  or  repentance.  I 
could  not  call  on  them  to  accept  my  verdict  on 
points  that  came  so  near  their  souls.  That  is  not 
our  conception  of  the  ministry.  And  they  were 
people  in  the  press  and  care  of  life.  They  could 
not  give  their  minds  to  such  critical  questions. 
If  they  had  had  the  time,  they  had  not  the  training. 
I  saw  amateurs  making  the  attempt  either  in  the 
pew  or  in  the  pulpit.  And  the  result  was  a  warning. 
Yet  there  were  Christian  matters  which  men  must 
decide  for  themselves,  trained  or  not.  Therefore, 
these  matters  could  not  be  the  things  which  were 
at  issue  in  historic  criticism  taken  alone.  More- 
over, I  looked  beyond  my  immediate  charge,  and 
viewed  the  state  of  mind  and  faith  in  the  Church 
at  large — especially  in  those  sections  of  it  nearest 
myself.  And  I  became  convinced  that  they  were 
in  no  spiritual  condition  to  have  forced  on  them 
those  questions  on  which  scholars  so  delighted  and 
differed.  They  were  not  entrenched  in  that  reality 
of  experience  and  that  certainty  of  salvation  which  is 
the  position  of  safety  and  command  in  all  critical 
matters.  It  also  pleased  God  by  the  revelation 
of  His  holiness  and  grace,  which  the  great  theologians 
taught  me  to  find  in  the  Bible,  to  bring  home  to 
me  my  sin  in  a  way  that  submerged  all  the  school 
questions  in  weight,  urgency,  and  poignancy.  I 
was  turned  from  a  Christian  to  a  believer,  from  a 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern   283 

lover  of  love  to  an  object  of  grace.  And  so,  whereas 
I  first  thought  that  what  the  Churches  needed 
was  enlightened  instruction  and  liberal  theology, 
I  came  to  be  sure  that  what  they  needed  was  evange- 
lization, in  something  more  than  the  conventional 
sense  of  that  word.  "  What  we  need  is  not  the 
dechurching  of  Christianity,  but  the  Christianizing 
of  the  Church."  For  the  sake  of  critical  freedom, 
in  the  long  run  that  is  so.  Religion  without  an 
experimental  foundation  in  grace,  readily  feels 
panic  in  the  presence  of  criticism,  and  is  apt  to  do 
wild  and  unjust  things  in  its  terror.  The  Churches 
axe  not,  in  the  main,  in  the  spiritual  condition  of 
certainty  which  enables  them  to  be  composed  and 
fair  to  critical  methods.  They  either  expect  too 
much  from  them,  and  then  round  upon  them  in 
disappointed  anger  when  it  is  not  forthcoming. 
Or  they  expect  so  little  from  them  that  they  despise 
them  as  only  ignorance  can.  They  run  either  to 
rationalism  or  to  obscurantism.  There  was  some- 
thing to  be  done,  I  felt,  before  they  could  freely  handle 
the  work  of  the  scholars  on  the  central  positions. 

And  that  something  was  to  revive  the  faith  of 
the  Churches  in  what  made  them  Churches  ;  to  turn 
them  from  the  ill-found  sentiment  which  had 
sapped  faith ;  to  re-open  their  eyes  to  the  meaning 
of  their  own  salvation ;  to  rectify  their  Christian 
charity  by  more  concern  for  Christian  truth  ;  to 
banish  the  amiable  religiosity  which  had  taken 
possession  of  them  in  the  name  of  Christian  love ; 
and  to  restore  some  sense  not  only  of  love's  severity, 


284    Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

but  of  the  unsparing  moral  mordancy  in  the  Cross 
and  its  judgment,  which  means  salvation  to  the 
uttermost ;  to  recreate  an  experience  of  redemption, 
both  profound  and  poignant,  which  should  enable 
them  to  deal  reasonably,  without  extravagance 
and  without  panic,  with  the  scholars'  results  as 
these  came  in.  What  was  needed  before  we  dis- 
cussed the  evidence  for  the  resurrection,  was  a  revival 
of  the  sense  of  God's  judgment-grace  in  the  Cross, 
a  renewal  of  the  sense  of  holiness,  and  so  of 
sin,  as  the  Cross  set  forth  the  one,  and  exposed 
the  other  in  its  light.  We  needed  to  restore  their 
Christian  footing  to  many  in  the  Churches  who 
were  far  within  the  zone  which  criticism  occupies. 
In  a  word,  it  seemed  to  me  that  what  the  critical 
movement  called  for  was  not  a  mere  palliation  of 
orthodoxy,  in  the  shape  of  liberal  views,  but  a  new 
positivity  of  Gospel.  It  was  not  a  new  compre- 
hensiveness, but  a  new  concentration,  a  new  evange- 
lization, that  was  demanded  by  the  situation. 

But  the  defective  theological  education  of  the 
ministry  seemed  to  put  a  great  obstacle  in  the  way 
of  such  a  revival  as  I  have  described.  For,  incre- 
dible as  it  may  seem  to  many,  and  even  alarming, 
theology  was,  (for  reasons  on  which  it  would  be 
ungracious  for  me  to  enter,)  not  only  distrusted, 
but  hated  by  many  of  the  stewards  of  the  0eov  \0709. 
And  I  have  longed  and  prayed  to  see  the  man 
arise  to  alter  all  this,  with  an  equal  knowledge  of 
his  sin,  his  Saviour,  and  his  subject,  to  do  the 
work  that  had  to  be  done  in  rearing  men  with  a 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern   285 

real,  thorough,  humble  and  joyous  belief  in  their  own 
message,  and  to  do  it  on  a  scale  to  compel  the 
attention,  and  even  the  concern,  of  our  Churches. 
Meantime  my  own  course  seemed  prescribed.     It 
was,  in  the  space  of  life,  strength,  and  work  which 
was  yet  mine,  to  labour    as  one   who  waited   for 
that  messianic  hope,  and  to  try  to  persuade  those 
who  would  hear  to  join  me  in  preparation  for  so 
great  a  gift  of  God.     I  withdrew  my  prime  attention 
from  much  of  the  scholar's  work  and  gave  it  to 
those    theological    interests,     imbibed    first     from 
Maurice,  and  then  more  mightily  through  Ritschl, 
which  come  nearer  to  life  than  science,  sentiment,  or 
ethic  ever  can  do.     I  immersed  myself  in  the  Logic  of 
Hegel,^  and  corrected  it  by  the  theology  of  Paul,  and 
its  continuity  in  the  Reformation,  because  I  was  aU 
the  time  being  corrected  and  humiliated  by  the  Holy 
Spirit.    To  me  John  Newton's  hymn  which  I  spoke 
of  is  almost  holy  writ.     My  faith  in  critical  methods 
is  unchanged.      My  acceptance  of  many  of  the  new 
results  is  as  it  was.      This  applies  to  the  criticism 
of   traditional    dogma    no  less  than   of  scripture. 
But  the  need  of  the  hour,  among  the  only  circles 
I  can  reach,  is  not  that.    The  time  for  it  will  come, 
but  not  yet.     It  is  a   slow  matter.    For  what   is 
needed  is  no  mere  change  of  view,  but  a  change  and 
a  deepening  in  the  type  of  personal  religion,  amount- 
ing in  cases  to  a   new  conversion.     There  is  that 
amiss    with  the  Churches  which  free  criticism  can 

^  I  desire  to  own  here  how  very   much  I  owe  to   Dr. 
Fairbaim. 


2  86   Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

never  cure,  and  no  breadth  or  freshness  of  view 
amend.     There  is   a  lack  of  depth  and  height,  an 
attenuation  of  experience,  a  slackness  of  grasp,  a 
displacement  of   the  centre,  a  false  realism,  a  dis- 
location    of   perspective,  amid   which   the   things 
that   make  Christianity  permanently  Christian  are 
in  danger  of  fading  from  power,  if  not  from  view. 
In  a  word,  I  was  driven  to  a  change  of  front  though 
not  of  footing— to  the   preacher's  and  the  pastor's 
treatment    of    the    situation,    which    is    also  the 
New  Testament   view,  and  which  is  very  different 
from  the  scholar's.     The  savant  may  or  must  frame 
results  and  utter  them  regardless  of  their  public 
effect,  but  the  preacher  may  not.     The  order  of 
truth  he  deals  with  has  its  own  methods,  his  office 
has  its  own  paedagogic,  and  his  duty  its  own  con- 
science.     In  most  cases  the   best   contribution  the 
preacher  can  make  at  present  to  the  new  theology 
is  to   deepen    and    clear    the    old    faith,   and    to 
rescue   it    from  a   kind   of  religion   which  is   only 
religion    and    hardly    Christian    faith.     What    has 
often  passed  as  the  new  theology  is  no  more,  some- 
times, than  a  theology  of  fatigue,  or  a  theology  of 
the  press,  or  a   theology  of  views,  or  a  theology 
of  revolt.     Or  it  is  an  accommodation  theology,  a 
theology  accommodated  only  to  the  actual  interests 
of   the    cultured   hour.i      The   effort    made    is   to 

*  While  I  was  writing  this  I  read  the  address  of 
an  estimable  preacher  of  up-to-date  theology  who  was 
demanding  that  the  theologians  should  come  down  and 
accept    a    theology    imposed    by   three    things — physical 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modern    287 

substitute  for  the  old  faith  something  more  human 
in  its  origin,  more  humane  in  its  temper,  and 
more  halting  in  its  creed,  something  more  genial 
and  more  rational  and  more  shallow.  It  is  that 
rather  than  the  effort  to  deepen  the  old  theology 
by  a  sympathetic  re-interpretation,  which  pierces 
farther  into  its  content  of  revelation,  and  speaks 
the  old  faith  in  a  new  tongue.  The  tongue  is  new 
enough,  but  it  is  not  certain  that  it  speaks  the  old 
thing,  or  develops  its  position  from  a  profounder 
acquaintance  with  the  holiness  of  the  love  of  God 
within  the  Cross.  It  analyses  the  Bible,  but  it 
does  not  reconstruct  from  the  Bible,  but  from  what 
is  known  as  the  Christian  principle,  which  is  mainly 
human  nature  re-edited  and  bowdlerised. 

I  am  sure  no  new  theology  can  really  be  theology, 
whatever  its  novelty,  unless  it  express  and  develop 
the  old  faith  which  made  those  theologies  that 
are  now  old  the  mightiest  things  of  the  age  when 
they  were  new.     Well  do  I  know  how  little  a  theo- 

science,  historical  study  (especially  as  to  the  origin  of 
the  Bible),  and  comparative  religion.  Well,  these  results 
are  pretty  familiar  to  most  of  us  by  now,  and  very  sterile. 
But  you  will  hardly  believe  that  there  was  not  a  word 
about  the  study  of  the  Gospel,  our  application  to  the 
contents  of  Christ's  revelation  of  God,  the  implicates  of  his 
idea  of  God,  or  the  principles  of  his  work.  No,  that 
would  have  put  the  preacher  beside  the  theologians. 
He  would  have  had  to  ask  questions  about  what 
was  meant  by  God's  most  holy  love  in  Christ,  questions 
which  no  science  of  nature,  history  or  religion  can  answer. 
Our  spiritual  shyness  of  God's  holiness  has  more  than  some- 
thing to  do  with  the  ordinary  reaction  against  theology. 


2  88    Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

logy  in  itself  can  do,  and  how  the  mighty  doer  is 
the  living  faith.  But  I  know  well  also  that  that  faith 
is  not  the  real  thing  unless  it  compels  and  loves  an 
adequate  theology ;  and  if  it  cannot  produce  it  it 
dies.  I  know  well  also  how  seldom  it  is  really 
objections  to  an  outworn  system  that  keep  men 
from  Christ,  and  retard  the  Gospel.  I  am  sure 
that,  if  we  had  a  theology  brought  entirely  up  to 
date  in  regard  to  current  thought,  we  should  not 
then  have  the  great  condition  for  the  Kingdom 
of  God.  It  is  the  wills  of  men,  and  not  their  views, 
that  are  the  great  obstacle  to  the  Gospel,  and  the 
things  most  intractable.  The  power  to  deal  with 
those  wills  is  the  power  of  the  Gospel  as  the  eternal 
act  of  the  will  and  heart  of  God.  And  the  power 
of  the  Gospel  as  a  preached  thing  is  shaped  in  a 
message  which  has  had  from  the  first  a  theological 
language  of  its  own  creation  as  its  most  adequate 
vehicle.  To  discard  that  language  entirely  is  to 
maim  the  utterance  of  the  Gospel.  To  substitute 
a  vocabulary  of  mere  humane  sympathies  or 
notions  for  the  great  phrases  and  thoughts  which 
are  theology  compressed  into  diamonds  is  like  the 
attempt  to  improve  a  great  historic  language,  which 
is  a  nation's  record,  treasure  and  trust,  by  reducing 
it  to  Saxon  monosyllables,  and  these  to  phonetics. 
I  cannot  conceive  a  Christianity  to  hold  the  future 
without  words  like  grace,  sin,  judgment,  repentance, 
incarnation,  atonement,  redemption,  justification,  sac- 
rifice, faith  and  eternal  life.  No  words  of  less  volume 
than  these  can  do  justice  to  the  meaning  of  God, 


Preaching  Positive  and  Modem   289 

however  easy  their  access  to  the  minds  of  modem  men. 
It  needs  such  words  to  act  on  the  scale  of  God  and 
of  the  race.  And  the  preacher  who  sets  to  discard 
them  or,  what  is  more  common,  to  eviscerate 
them,  is  imperilUng  the  great  Church  for  a  passing 
effect  with  the  small.  For  a  living  and  modem 
theology  our  chief  need  is  a  living  and  positive 
faith,  moving  in  those  great  categories,  and  full 
of  confident  power  to  absorb  and  organize  the 
sound  thought  of  the  time.  To  rouse  and  feed 
this  faith  is  the  great  work  of  the  preacher.  And 
thus  the  service  the  preacher  does  to  theology  is 
at  least  no  less  than  the  service  theology  does  to 
him.  A  mere  theology  may  strain  and  stiffen 
the  preacher.  But  the  preacher  who  is  a  true 
steward  of  the  Christian  Word  makes  a  living 
theology  inevitable,  which,  because  it  lives,  demands 
new  form  and  fitness  for  each  succeeding  time. 

In  closing  his  recent  admirable  History  of  New 
England  Theology,  Dr.  Frank  Hugh  Foster  says  : 
"The  questions  of  the  present  hour  are  more 
fundamental  than  those  with  which  New  England 
Theology,  or  it  immediate  successors,  have  had  to 
concem  themselves.  A  ringing  call  is  sounding 
through  the  air  to  face  the  true  issue— the  reaUty 
of  God's  supernatural  interference  in  the  history 
of  man  versus  the  imiversal  reign  of  unmodified 
law  [or  ideas  and  processes].  The  question  is  not 
whether  the  old  evangelical  scheme  needs  some 
adjustments  to  adapt  it  to  our  present  knowledge, 
but    whether    its    most    fundamental    conception, 

P.P.  19 


290   Preaching  Positive  and  Modern 

the  very  idea  of  the  Gospel  is  true.  Before  this 
all  the  halfway  compromises  of  the  present  day 
must  be  given  up.  Men  must  take  sides.  They 
must  be  for  the  Gospel  or  against  it." 

And  for  or  against  a  historic  Gospel,  is  what  Dr. 
Foster  means 


THE  PREACHER  AND  MODERN 
ETHIC 


VIII 
The  Preacher  and  Modern  Ethic 

From  the  varied  features  of  modern  life  that  I  have 
indicated  I  should  like  to  select  for  further  treat- 
ment the  ethical  interest  and  its  development. 
There  is  no  note  in  the  modern  mind  more  wel- 
come or  hopeful  to  us  than  this  ethical  note,  the 
moralizing  of  society  in  its  ideas,  its  conduct,  its 
systems,  and  its  institutions.  In  the  case  of  institu- 
tions you  may  be  more  struck  with  the  humanizing 
of  them,  as  for  instance,  of  war.  But  the  moralizing 
movement  is  much  deeper,  and  much  more 
permanent,  and  it  carries  the  other,  the  humanizing 
element,  with  it. 

It  is  most  to  our  purpose  to  note  the  ethicizing 
of  theology,  among  other  legacies  of  the  past.  I 
must  have  already  said  that  a  modern  theology  is 
not  simply  theology  d  la  mode.  The  main  part  of 
the  modernizing  of  theology  is  the  moralizing  of 
it, — this  much  more  than  its  rationalizing.  But 
indeed  this  tendency  is  nothing  new.  It  is  but 
continuing  a  long  process  in  the  Christian  Church. 
It  was  Christ's  own  action  on  Judaism.  It  was  Paul's 
task  with  his  Pharisaism.  And  a  great  step  in  this 
movement  was    taken  in    the    Middle  Ages,   when 

293 


2  94  The  Preacher  and 

the  work  of  Christ  ceased  to  be  regarded  as  a 
traffic  with  Satan  for  His  captives,  and  became  for 
Ansehn  a  satisfaction  made  by  Christ  to  the  wounded 
honour  of  God.  It  was  another  step  when  the 
principles  of  a  great  social  discipline  like  jurispru- 
dence were  applied  to  explain  the  situation.  It  was  a 
real  advance  when  the  Reformation  introduced  the 
idea  of  public  justice,  instead  of  wounded  honour,  as 
the  object  of  satisfaction.  The  much  decried  forensic 
idea  was  ethically  far  ahead  of  the  previous  idea 
which  recognized  in  Satan  rights  of  property  in  souls, 
ahead  also  of  the  feudal  idea  of  the  honour  of  God. 
And  still  we  move  up  the  moral  scale  as  we  substitute 
for  retributive  justice  with  its  individualism,  uni- 
versal righteousness  and  eternal  holiness  with  the 
social  note.  So  also  when  we  discard  the  idea  of 
equivalent  penalty  in  favour  of  Christ's  obedient 
sanctity  as  the  satisfying  thing  before  God,  The 
whole  great  movement  of  thought  on  that  question 
has  been  on  an  ascending  moral  scale.  The  more 
we  modernize  it  the  more  we  moralize  it.  And  the 
modifications  called  for  to-day  are  in  the  same 
direction.  Our  revisions  but  continue  the  long 
process  of  moral  refinement  in  the  Christian  mind. 
And  it  appears  en  route  that  we  cannot  ethicize 
Christianity  without  pursuing  a  doctrine  of  Atone- 
ment ever  more  positive.  The  more  ethical  we 
become  the  more  exigent  is  holiness ;  and  there- 
fore the  more  necessary  is  Atonement  as  the  action 
of  love  and  grace  at  the  instance  of  holiness  and  in 
its  interests. 


Modern   Ethic  295 

Let  us  only  flee  the  amateur  notion  that  in  the 
Cross  there  is  no  ultimate  ethical  issue  involved, 
that  it  is  a  simple  rehgious  appeal  to  the  heart. 
The  pulpit  is  doomed  to  futility  if  it  appeal  to  the 
heart  in  any  sense  that  discredits  the  final  appeal 
to  the  conscience.  I  mean  it  is  doomed  if  it  keep 
declaring  that,  with  such  a  Father  as  Christ's,  for- 
giveness is  a  matter  of  course ;  the  only  difficulty 
being  to  insert  it  into  men's  hearty  belief.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  is  a  very  popular  notion.  *  How 
natural  for  God  to  forgive.  It  is  just  like  Him.' 
Whereas  the  real  truth  is  that  it  is  only  like  the 
God  familiar  to  us  from  the  Cross,  and  not  from  our 
natural  expectation.  Real  forgiveness  is  not 
natural.  Nor  is  it  natural  and  easy  to  consent  to  be 
forgiven.  The  more  quick  our  moral  sensibility  is 
the  more  slow  we  are  to  accept  our  forgiveness.  And 
that  not  through  pride  always,  but  often  through 
the  exact  opposite — through  shame,  and  the  inability 
to  forgive  one's  self.  Is  it  Newman  who  says  that 
the  good  man  never  forgives  himself  ?  I  wish  a 
great  many  more  said  it.  We  should  then  have  a 
better  hold  of  the  forgiveness  of  God.  We  should 
realize  how  far  from  a  matter  of  course  forgiveness 
was  for  a  holy,  and  justly  angry,  God,  for  all  His 
love.  A  free  forgiveness  flows  from  moral  strength, 
but  an  easy  forgiveness  only  means  moral  weakness. 
How  natural  for  God  to  forgive  !  Nay,  if  there 
be  one  thing  in  the  world  for  ever  supernatural  it 
is  real  forgiveness — especially  on  the  scale  of  redemp- 
tion.    It  is  natural  only  to  the  Supernatural.    The 


296  The  Preacher  and 

natural  man  does  not  forgive.  He  resents  and 
revenges.  His  wrath  smoulders  tiU  it  flash.  And 
the  man  who  forgives  easily,  jauntily,  and  thought- 
lessly, when  it  is  a  real  offence,  is  neither  natural 
nor  supernatural  but  subnatural.  He  is  not  only 
less  than  God  he  is  less  than  man. 

§ 

Is  not  God's  forgiveness  the  great  moral  paradox, 
the  great  incredibility  of  the  moral  life,  needing 
all  the  miracle  of  Christ's  person  and  action  to  make 
us  realize  it  when  we  grasp  the  terms  ?  A  recent 
authority  on  preaching  warns  us  that  the  effective 
preacher  must  not  be  afraid  of  paradox.  For  the 
politician,  or  the  journalist,  on  the  other  hand, 
nothing  is  more  fatal.  But  that  is  the  region  of  the 
ordinary  able  man,  for  whom  all  things  must  be  plain 
— with  a  tendency  to  be  dull.  In  that  world  an  epi- 
gram is  a  frivohty,  an  antithesis  mere  ingenuity, 
and  a  paradox  is  mere  perversity. 

Are  there  not  two  distinct  classes  of  mind  ?  The 
one  finds  in  what  is  given  him  just  what  is  given, 
and  he  is  impatient  of  anything  beyond.  His  world 
is  as  obvious  as  the  primrose  quotation  from 
Wordsworth  would  here  be.  The  other  tends 
always  to  divine  in  the  given  the  not  yet  given. 
The  second  truth,  the  rest  of  the  truth,  the  hidden 
truth,  the  dark  twin,  is  the  weighty,  fascinating 
pole  of  it.  The  idea  latent,  the  subtle  illusion,  the 
mockery  of  the  face-value,  the  slow  result,  the  subver- 
sive effect,  the  irony  of  providence,  the  absurdities 


Modern   Ethic  297 

of  God  stronger  than  all  the  wisdom  of  men,  the 
mighty  futility  of  the  Cross — these  are  the  things  that 
appeal  to  such  a  mind,  rather  than  the  obvious 
which  smites  you  in  the  face.  To  have  the  palpable 
thrown  in  its  face  is  what  the  public  loves,  and  it 
turns  the  other  cheek.  And  many  are  the  professors  of 
the  obvious,  and  traffickers  in  the  simple,  and  great 
is  their  reward  in  the  heaven  of  their  clientele.  But, 
for  all  that,  when  the  soul,  even  of  the  pubhc,  is 
moved  to  its  depths,  it  is  beyond  the  reach  of  help 
or  comfort  from  the  obvious.  The  review  satisfies 
not,  the  politician  aids  not,  and  the  simple  pulpit 
has  no  stay.  Then  do  we  lift  our  eyes  to  the  hills, 
even  to  the  twin  peaks  of  Parnassus  ;  and  we  flee 
for  strength  to  the  truths  of  paradox,  and  to  the 
men  who  see  all  things  double  one  against  another. 
Then  we  find  more  sense  in  those  who  speak  of 
"  dying  to  live  "  than  in  those  who  say  "  all  that  a 
man  hath  will  he  give  for  his  life."  There  is  more  in 
those  who  bid  us  lose  our  soul  if  we  would  find  it 
than  in  those  who  would  find  our  soul  for  us  at  a  price 
current.  There  is  a  poverty  that  makes  many 
rich.  And  Christian  wealth  consists  in  our  ceasing 
to  possess.  And  you  will  remember  a  whole  series 
of  these  pregnant  epigrams  as  the  only  expression 
of  the  Apostles'  experience  in  2  Cor.  iv.  8-1 1. 

Life  from  its  beginning  is  a  vast  vital  contradic- 
tion. It  proceeds  by  the  tension  and  balance  of 
forces  that  destroy  and  forces  that  build.  We  are 
bom  with  the  death  sentence  in  us.  We  die  every 
hour  we  live.     We  live,  spiritually,  moreover,  in  a 


298  The  Preacher  and 

standing  contradiction  of  liberty  and  dependence, 
freedom  and  grace,  object  and  subject.  Personality 
itself  is— I  will  not  say  an  illogical— but  an  alogical 
unity  ;  else  it  could  not  be  a  power.  All  scientific 
experience  is  paradoxicaUy  against  the  personality 
whose  unity  and  continuity  alone  make  any  ex- 
perience possible.  Credo  quia  absurdum  is  much 
less  absurd  than  it  looks.  A  dogma  which  contains 
a  contradiction  like  that  of  the  God-man  may,  for 
that  very  reason,  be  the  only  adequate  expression 
for  the  experience  of  the  soul  at  its  last  and  greatest 

height. 

However  it  may  be  with  the  writer,  the  preacher 
must  not  be  afraid  of  paradox.     It  is  his  dread  of 
paradox,  his  addiction  to  the  obvious,  that  so  often 
makes  him  a  bore.     His  simplicity  succeeds  only  in 
being  bald  and  passionless.     Of  course,  a  string  of 
paradoxes  may  easily  bore  us,  but  not  more  than  a 
string   of   commonplaces.     And   a  string  of  para- 
doxes, ingeniously  invented,  is  one    thing.     It  is 
smart,  metaUic,  offensive.     But  the  great  recurrent 
paradox  of  the  spiritual  life,  revealed  or  discovered, 
is  another  thing.     The  haunting  moral  paradox  of 
the  Cross  is  another  thing.     And   if  we  shun  that, 
and  water  that  down,  and  extenuate  that,  we  have 
no  Gospel  to  preach,  or  we  preach  what  we  have  with- 
out passion.     Who  has  tasted  the  spiritual  Hfe  that 
knows  nothing  of  the  deep,  eternal,  commanding  non- 
sense of  "rejoicing  in  tribulation"  or  being  "  more 
than  conquerors  "  as  the  "  slaves  of  Christ."     Non- 
sense is  just  the  word  a  cultivated  Roman  would  have 


Modern   Ethic  299 

used  for  such  speech.  The  offence  of  the  Cross,  the 
scandal  of  it,  the  blazing  indiscretion  and  audacious 
paradox  of  it,  has  not  ceased.  Nor  has  its  appeal 
ceased  to  that  region  of  us  to  which  we  come  when 
our  plain  palpable  world  startles  and  deceives  us 
by  smiting  us  to  the  dust  and  rolling  over  us — as  if 
a  man  should  lean  upon  a  wall  and  a  snake  bit  him> 
or  went  for  a  walk  and  a  lion  met  him.  We  do  not 
touch  the  deep  illogical  things  of  God  till  we  find 
paradox  their  only  expression.  Life  under  God  is 
one  grand  paradox  of  dependence  and  liberty.  These 
two  logical  incompatibles  are  only  solved  in  the  living 
active  unity  of  the  moral  person,  especially  towards 
God.  So  with  life  and  death.  The  tremendous  passion 
for  Ufe  is  God's  paradoxical  way  of  expressing  the 
intense  significance  of  death  as  life's  consummation 
and  solution.  What  we  call  the  passion  of  Christ  is 
the  divine  reflection  of  the  passion  of  human  life. 
His  awful  death  is  but  the  obverse  and  not  the 
doom  of  His  solemn  and  abounding  life.  And  it 
not  only  embodies  life's  intensity  but  interprets 
it.  It  is  the  whole  passion  and  power  of  life  sub 
specie  eternitatis.  The  passion  of  life  with  which 
we  shrink  from  death  is  the  negative,  but  eloquent, 
expression  of  the  intensity  of  life's  Immortality.  That 
massive  and  peaceful  lake  has  slumbering  in  it  all 
the  volume  and  power  of  the  roaring  river  of  earthly 
life  that  fills  it.  Thoughts  like  these  serve  to  com- 
pose and  dignify  us,  where  the  plain  is  but  the 
trivial,  and  the  clear  is  but  the  thin. 

Now  holy  forgiveness  is  the  greatest  moral  paradox, 


300  The  Preacher  and 

the  most  exalting,  pacifying  paradox,  the  greatest 
practical  paradox,  in  the  world.  Do  not  think  that 
the  word  of  your  Gospel  is  not  a  moral  paradox — 
law  and  love,  the  just  and  the  justifier  of  the  unjust, 
the  holy  and  the  sanctifier  of  the  unholy,  holy  severity 
and  loving  mercy,  yea,  the  Holy  made  sin.  Of 
their  union  the  Cross  is  not  only  the  evidential  fact 
but  the  effecting  fact.  It  not  only  reveals  it,  it 
brings  it  about.  That  God  might  be  just  and 
also  the  justifier  of  the  sinner  meant  all  the  moral 
mystery  of  the  Cross,  and  all  its  offence  to  the 
natural  moral  man.  The  natural  moral  man  either 
does  not  forgive — and  there  are  none  more  unfor- 
giving than  some  sticklers  for  morality ;  or  else  he 
forgives  as  he  shaves — "  I  suppose  I  ought  to  ;  " 
or  as  he  dines — "  because  I  like  to."  He  believes 
in  a  God  who  either  does  not  forgive,  or  who  for- 
gives of  course — c'est  son  metier.  But  the  true 
supernatural  forgiveness  is  a  revolution  and  not 
an  evolution — yea,  it  means  a  solemn  and  ordered 
crisis  within  God  Himself.  But  crisis  is  Greek  for 
judgment.  The  forgiveness  of  the  world  can  only 
be  accomplished  by  the  judgment  of  the  world 
That  is  the  indispensable  paradox  whereby  Chris- 
tianity makes  morality  spiritual.  And  not  to  realize 
that  means  a  step  back  and  not  forward  in  the  great 
modernizing  drift  which  moralizes  spiritual  things. 


It  is  a  poor  error  to  think  that  the  ethicizing  of 
religion  is  its  prompt  application  to  present  problems, 


Modern   Ethic  301 


or  the  reduction  of  religion  to  ethics,  and  faith  to 
cold  morality.  Rather,  by  concentrating  religion  in 
a  crisis  between  holiness  and  sin  it  gives  to  it  a  moral 
nature  and  a  moral  core,  a  moral  focus  and  a  moral 
soul.  Sin,  it  has  been  said,  is  the  one  fact  in 
which  religion  and  moraUty  are  inseparably  bound. 
It  is  still  more  true  of  Christ's  conquest  of  sin. 
In  particular,  the  ethicizing  of  the  Cross  means 
this.  It  does  not  mean  simply  treating  the  Cross  as 
the  apotheosis  of  that  self-sacrifice  which  is  the  crown 
of  humane  ethic,  or  the  epitome  of  that  altruism  which 
cements  society.  It  does  not  mean  that  the  Cross  is 
viewed  as  the  grand  object  lesson  in  ethics  to  men,  and 
the  great  lever  in  the  hand  of  a  changeless  God  to 
lift  them  back  to  the  rails  they  had  left.  It  does 
not  mean  that  the  Cross  must  be  construed  wholly 
by  the  moral  category  of  fatherhood  instead  of  the 
juristic  category  of  judgment.  Those  who  so  speak 
forget  that  there  are  other  and  larger  moral  cate- 
gories than  the  domestic  relations,  and  a  world  far 
vaster  than  the  home.  Christ's  domestic  life  was 
a  tragedy.  His  family  thought  him  mad.  He 
has  nothing  to  say  of  family  feeling  or  fireside  joy. 
"  Who  doeth  the  will  of  God  is  to  me  kith  and  kin." 
And  Paul  was  of  like  mind.  Those  who  would  trans- 
late God's  ways  wholly  in  homely  categories  forget 
that  when  we  are  dealing  with  God  we  are  dealing 
on  the  scale  of  all  human  society,  dealing  with  the 
social  and  not  merely  the  afiectional  conscience,  in- 
deed with  the  eternal  moral  order  of  existence.  They 
forget  that    juristic  principles  form  one  aspect   of 


302  The  Preacher  and 

that  social  ethic  which  is  such  an  enthusiasm  of  the 
modern  world.  They  forget  that  to  moralize  the 
Cross  means  to  explain  it  not  simply  by  the  enlarge- 
ment of  the  best  private  ethic  but  by  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  largest  public  ethic  of  the  time.  This 
was  so  when  the  jurists  played  such  a  part  as  theolo- 
gians, at  the  close  of  the  middle  age.  And  to-day 
the  demand  for  social  righteousness  rather  than  char- 
ity ("  Curse  your  charity  !  give  us  work  !  ")  when 
it  is  applied  to  the  Cross  as  the  centre  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  means  the  demand  for  its  explanation  in 
terms  of  the  holiness  of  God  rather  than  His  pitying 
love  or  altruism  alone.    But  to  this  I  must  recur  later. 

§ 
To  ethicize  religion,  I  say  then,  does  not  mean  to 
reduce  it  to  pedestrian  morality  but  to  recognize 
in  its  heart  the  action  of  the  greatest  influence  in 
the  higher  movement  of  civilization — I  mean  the 
primacy  of  the  moral.  To  the  preacher  this  is  an 
observation  of  the  first  importance,  for  it  means 
the  primacy  and  finality  of  the  holy  in  his  con- 
struction of  the  Gospel.  Faith  is  not  ethic,  but  it 
is  nothing  if  it  be  not  ethical.  We  could  not  have 
faith  even  in  infinite  love  were  it  not  holy  love. 
That  is  what  makes  the  eternal  steadfastness  on 
which  faith  rests.  Faith  acts  on  the  heart  but  its 
seat  is  in  the  conscience,  and  its  reflection  is  found 
in  the  pure  bench  of  a  great  realm  no  less  than  in 
its  kindly  homes.  The  rational,  therefore,  must  here 
take  a  second  place,  and  with  it  goes  the  hegemony 
of    the    doctrinaire.      With    it    goes    the    rule   of 


Modern   Ethic  303 

intellectualism,  whether  as  orthodoxy  or  heresy,  and 
the  reign  of  the  sentimental,  which  rationahsm  always 
brings  as  a  sweet  sauce  to  moisten  its  sapless  drought. 

In  almost  every  department  we  are  forced  to 
recognize  this  ethicizing  movement.  I  need  not 
waste  time  in  pointing  out  to  you  that  it  is  identical 
with  the  purification  of  society,  its  reform,  its  rescue 
from  politics  and  commerce,  from  the  tyranny  of 
monarchy,  aristocracy,  democracy,  and  plutocracy. 
I  need  not  remind  you  how  much  more  it  means  than 
philanthropy,  how  it  means  the  salvation  of  philan- 
thropy itself,  and  its  provision  with  staying  power. 
For  we  preachers  have  this  great  advantage  in  these 
days.  The  primacy  of  the  moral,  the  leadership  of 
the  will  among  the  faculties,  is  really  the  same  as  our 
cardinal  principle  of  justification  by  faith  alone. 
For  faith  is  the  greatest  moral  act  a  man  can  per- 
form, as  the  grace  it  answers  is  the  supreme  moral 
possibility  for  God,  the  supreme  triumph  of  His 
holiness.  Faith  is  the  moral  act  which  covers, 
pervades,  and  assigns  the  whole  man  as  a  living 
person.  Therefore  this  modern  claim  for  the  primacy 
of  the  moral  is  one  which  we  preachers  should 
welcome,  for  we  have  in  our  charge  the  supreme 
means  of  giving  it  effect.  Much  of  this,  however, 
may  be  among  things  obvious,  "^ 

But  it  may  be  less  obvious,  and  it  may  not  be 
beyond  our  purpose,  if  I  make  special  allusion  to 
the  spread  of  this  movement  in  philosophy,  and 
especially  in  psychology ;  to  the  defeat  of  rationahsm, 
even  of  the  nobler  kind,  with  the  retreat  of  Hegel ; 


304  The  Preacher  and 

and  to  the  triumph  of  voluntarism  in  a  revised 
Kant,  through  men  hke  Schopenhauer,  Paulsen, 
Wundt,  Eucken,  and  James.  Even  positivism 
worked  in  this  direction  of  subduing  intellectualism 
to  the  will  of  love.  The  reason  is  but  the  tool  of  the 
will.  The  will  is  real  life.  Reality  is  experience, 
and  experience  is  the  contact  of  personalities.  It  is 
a  plexus  of  wills.  Life  is  not  a  shadow,  or  a  thing, 
but  an  energy,  a  will  to  live,  as  God  Himself  is 
not  an  infinite  spiritual  presence  in  repose,  but  an 
infinite  spiritual  power  in  essential  action.  Even 
for  Aristotle  God  was  an  ivipyeia.  The  moral  will  is 
the  will  to  live  fully,  the  passionate  self-asseveration 
of  life,  slowly  shaped  by  relations  social  and  divine, 
by  humanity  and  God.  Life  rises  from  the  unit, 
through  the  social  stage,  to  eternal  life.  Action  is 
good  which  promotes  the  life  of  the  race  in  all  its 
resources  ;  and  the  life  of  the  race  is  good  when  it 
fulfils  and  enriches  the  life  of  God  in  all  its  fulness. 
That  is  to  say,  man  is  good  not  in  happiness  but  in 
perfection ;  that  is  in  holiness.  The  good  is  what 
enhances  true  life,  the  bad  is  what  cramps  and 
kills  it.  Life,  spirit,  is  the  first  thing  and  the  last. 
Energy,  vitality,  fulness  of  experience  takes  the 
place  of  mechanism,  constructions,  and  schemes.  Ac- 
tion takes  the  place  of  vision  ;  the  redemption  of  the 
world  takes  the  place  of  its  interpretation.  Science 
therefore,  retires  to  its  due  place.  Our  first  need  is 
to  know  the  destiny  of  the  world  and  not  its  scheme. 
It  is  not  ability  that  has  the  secret  of  life  but  energy 
moral  power.      Reality  is  life,  and  not  mere  truth, 


Modern   Ethic  305 


it  is  life  as  will,  as  power,  as  spirit.  It  is  spiritual 
ethical,  personal  life,  a  worid  of  moral  values,  becom- 
ing absolute  and  eternal  in  God's  holiness.  We  need 
urgently  that  we  get  over  the  aesthetic  idea  of 
holiness,  the  idea  of  white  and  even  burning  purity 
as  of  Eternal  light,  and  attain  the  active  idea  of 
Eternal  Life  and  absolute  moral  and  personal 
energy.  God  the  holy  is  not  like  a  snowy  peak  on 
the  roof  of  the  world  wreathed  with  the  incense  of  our 
contemplation  ;  but  rather  is  he  a  sun  of  power  in  our 
heaven  and  the  source  of  all  vital  force.  This  will-life, 
personal,  but  more,  is  the  prime  and  creative  factor  in 
the  soul.  Men  must  achieve  themselves,  and  acquire 
their  souls,  rather  than  think  correctly.  The  theolo- 
gian, for  instance,  should  first  be  not  a  philosopher 
but  a  saved  man,  with  eternal  life  working  in  him. 
Christian  theology  is  the  theology  not  of  illumina- 
tion but  of  conversion.  The  supreme  Christian  gift 
is  not  eternal  truth  but  eternal  life,  more  life,  fuller 
life,  godlier  life,  holier  life,  a  life  inspired  spiritually 
from  the  past  but  not  ruled  romantically  by  the  past, 
ruled  rather  by  perfection.  Life,  which  began  in  spon- 
taneity and  not  in  thought,  is  raised  by  a  faith  passing 
logic  to  share  in  a  spontaneity  infinite  and  eternal  in 
the  Spirit.  To  the  eye  of  spiritual  reality  we  are  out- 
growing the  age  of  science.  We  are  outgrowing  in- 
tellectual constructions  of  the  world,  whether  they 
be  those  of  modem  physics,  or  of  the  ecclesiastical 
systems  which  represent  the  best  science  of  centuries 
ago.  Our  chief  business  is  not  to  pourtray  the  world 
we  are  in  but  to  realize  and  effect  it.  We  have  to  divine 
p.p.  20 


3o6  The  Preacher  and 

rather  than  define.  We  have  to  divine  its  meaning 
rather  than  make  pictures  and  concepts  of  its  state. 
We  are  in  an  actual  situation  and  not  in  a  painted 
scene.  Our  first  concern  is  not  a  sketch,  narrow  or 
broad,  but  a  purpose.  It  is  not.  How  is  our  world 
built  ?  but.  What  does  it  intend  ?  We  interpret  not 
from  a  knowledge  of  the  past  but  from  a  revelation  of 
the  perfect.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  totally  disinter- 
ested knowledge.  It  is  all  in  the  interest  of  life,  all 
dominated  by  the  will  to  live.  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  pure  science,  absolutely  poised  and  impartial. 
There  are  no  pure  inteUigences.  They  would  be 
monsters.  Intellect  is  a  function  of  personality. 
Beliefs  depend  on  the  will  to  beheve.  The  ideals  we 
live  by  are  not  a  product  of  the  intellect,  but  of  the 
will,  of  our  life  energy,  of  life's  ideal,  of  life  energizing 
at  its  future  best.  They  are,  so  to  say,  the  retroaction 
of  our  life's  urgent  future  and  fulness  ;  or  the  bene- 
ficent pressure  of  posterity,  which  plays  a  part  so 
much  greater  than  heredity.  An  ideal  is  a  value, 
not  a  mere  vision ;  and  a  value  is  a  judgment 
of  the  wiQ.  If  you  have  no  will  you  have  no 
ideals ;  and  no  description  of  ideals  by  any 
preacher  will  move  you.  Knowledge  always  follows 
life-interest  in  the  long  run.  We  prosecute  the 
knowledge  of  what  we  are  interested  in,  of  what 
appeals  to  life,  feehng,  force,  concern.  We  hate 
and  dread  the  ennui  which  is  the  absence  of  these 
things.  Religion  is  so  far  superstition  in  that  both 
represent  the  deep  instinct  of  escape  from  the 
rational.   We  interpret  men  and  movements  diversely 


Modern  Ethic  307 

according  to  our  supreme  interest  in  life.  No  doubt 
sects  and  parties  thus  arise.  But  they  are  better  than 
a  unanimity  of  frozen  thought  Uke  the  Greek  Church, 
or  of  imperious  thought  hke  the  Roman.  No  scheme 
of  the  world  can  give  us  more  than  an  orthodoxy 
or  a  heresy.  It  cannot  give  us  the  main  thing, 
which  is  the  meaning,  the  drift,  the  issue,  the  goal, 
the  settlement  of  the  world.  That  meaning  resides 
in  its  action,  its  movement,  its  history,  its  destiny, 
its  purpose.  It  resides,  in  a  word,  in  its  God,  its 
immanent,  transcendent,  relative,  absolute,  and  final 
God.  It  is  only  that  sectarianism  of  thought  which 
is  called  specialism  that  denies  a  theology.  A  the- 
ology is  borne  in  upon  us  the  more  urgently  the 
larger  our  purview  of  the  world  is. 

This  moral  movement,  therefore,  so  conspicuous 
in  society  and  philosophy,  affects  theology  no  less. 
The  burthen  of  a  real  theology  is  not  a  cosmology 
but  a  teleology.  It  reveals  and  assures  the  moral 
purpose  of  the  world.  It  presents  us  with  our 
future  in  advance.  It  builds  on  the  supremacy 
and  finality  of  intelligent  action  toward  a  moral 
purpose,  toward  a  consummation  of  life,  not  of 
science,  whether  sacred  or  secular.  A  real  theology 
is  that  which  is  framed  under  the  primacy,  not  of 
the  rational  or  scientific,  but  of  the  moral,  that  is,  of 
the  holy.  Everything  here  turns  on  the  hegemony 
of  personahty,  on  its  central  organ  as  conscience, 
on  its  central  energy  as  will,  on  its  central  malady 
as  sin,  on  its  central  destiny  as  redemption.  The 
great  object  of  things  is  not  the  self-expression  of 


3o8 


The  Preacher  and 


the  Eternal  in  time  but  His  self-effectuation  as  holy 
in  a  kingdom.  The  work  of  Christ  was  not  simply 
the  revelation  of  a  new  world  but  its  achievement. 
The  world  is  not  God's  expression,  but  His  action. 
His  conflict,  His  conquest.  What  theology  has  in 
charge  is  the  message  of  a  final  and  holy  con- 
summation, awaiting  history,  yet  anticipated  in 
history,  in  the  consummate,  victorious  Christ.  It 
is  the  prepayment  of  our  divine  destiny.  We  see 
not  yet  all  things  put  under  either  God  or  man  but 
we  see  Jesus,  faith's  source  and  consummator  alike. ^ 


I  said  the  interpretation  of  history  comes  not 
from  a  scientific  or  inductive  knowledge  of  the  past 
but  from  the  idea  of  life's  perfection,  i.e.  the 
revelation,  which  is  also  the  effectuation,  of  life's 
destined  holiness.  I  am  particular  to  say  its  destined 
holiness,  and  not  its  innate  or  essential,  because  it  is 
not  intrinsic  to  man  but  is  the  gift  and  revelation  of 
God.  Where  then  is  that  creative  revelation  ?  For 
the  Christian  it  is  given  in  history,  but  it  is  not  an 
induction  from  history,  nor  an  intuition  of  conscious- 
ness. It  is  given  first  in  the  inner  history  of  a  people 
with  a  moral  destiny,  a  select  people,  Israel,  issuing 
secondly  in  the  life  and  action  of  an  elect  person, 
Christ.  That  gift  is  the  great  charter  of  the  preacher. 
He  has  to  do  with  a  situation  which  is  moral  above 
all  things,  with  men  and  interests  that  have  their 

^  See  for  the  continuation  of  this  line  of  thought  the 
Appendix  to  this  lecture. 


Modern   Ethic  309 

raison  d'etre  there,  whose  bearing  and  action  are  on 
the  will.  He  is  also  the  steward  of  a  historic  act 
in  Christ,  whose  perennial  power  over  life  is  in 
striking  contrast  with  our  success  as  yet  in  giving 
any  rational  account  of  it.  The  Apostles  were  not 
made  preachers  by  a  theology  but  by  a  personal 
act  and  the  experience  of  it,  by  a  new  life  and  not  a 
new  creed,  a  new  power  and  not  a  new  institution. 
There  was,  indeed,  a  new  society  but  it  was  made 
by  the  new  power.  What  roused  the  Apostles  was 
Christ  as  the  crown  of  a  long  revelation  coming 
through  historic  action.  And  when  they  gave  such 
supreme  value  to  Christ's  death,  it  was  not  simply 
the  Judaic  notion  of  symbolic  sacrifice  that  moved 
them.  Symbols  make  poets  but  not  missionaries. 
The  missionary  needs  a  much  more  real  and  ethical 
inspiration.  Symbols  but  reflect,  they  do  not  effect. 
And  the  effectual  thing  was  the  ethical  action  at 
the  core  of  Israel's  destiny,  the  long  action  of 
election,  righteousness,  judgment,  love  ;  which  had 
its  consummation  in  Christ,  and  gave  Christ  His 
unique  appeal  as  Captain  of  the  elect  to  Israel's 
choicest  sons.  In  the  ethicizing  of  theology  by  the 
idea  of  the  holy  we  but  return  to  the  fountain 
head. 


The  trust  of  Israel  and  its  gift  to  the  world  was 
not  mere  monotheism.  It  was  the  ethical  mono- 
theism which  could  not  rest  till  it  rose  to  grasp  the 
one  God  only  as  the  holy  God.     The  God  of  Israel 


3  I  o  The  Preacher  and 

was  not  a  monopolist.  He  was  not  sole  as  ousting  and 
consuming  other  deities  by  sheer  push  and  power  ; 
but  as  the  unity  of  righteousness  and  peace,  of 
judgment  and  mercy,  of  unapproachable  sanctity 
and  of  approaching  grace.  The  very  history  of  the 
word  holiness  in  the  Old  Testament  displays  the 
gradual  transcendence  of  the  idea  of  separation  by 
that  of  sanctity.  It  traverses  a  path  in  which  the 
quantitative  idea  of  tabu  changes  to  the  qualitative 
idea  of  active  and  absolute  purity.  The  religious  grows 
ethical,  that  it  may  become  not  only  more  religious 
but  the  one  religion  for  the  conscience  and  for  the 
world.     The  one  God  can  only  be  the  holy  God. 

When  Israel  sank  to  Judaism  the  ethical  element 
retired  before  official  rule  and  imperial  ambition 
— as  to-day  Curialism  and  Ultramontanism  have 
submerged  the  ethical  spirituality  which  made 
men  like  St.  Bernard  in  the  great  medieval  Church. 
When  Christ  came  the  ethical  Israel  was  in  the 
trough  of  a  wave.  Judaism  had  come  to  what  some 
of  our  active  and  forward  Churches  have  reached. 
It  had  lost  the  sense  of  sanctity  in  the  pursuit  of  a 
righteousness  based,  now  on  equity,  now  on  charity, 
but  always  disjoined  from  grace.  For  Judaism  it  was 
the  formal  righteousness  of  an  ecclesiastical  society, 
for  us  it  is  the  distributive  justice  of  an  economic 
society.  But,  for  both,  righteousness  and  kindness 
submerge  hohness  and  grace.  We  are  far  more 
kind  to  our  neighbours  than  we  feel  God  gracious 
to  us.  For  many  in  our  Churches  a  meal  to  poor 
children  or  cripples  is  associated  with  more  stir 


Modern  Ethic  311 

of  interest  and  sense  of  benefit  than  the  Com- 
munion. There  is  more  heart-certainty  and  satis- 
faction about  it.  If  that  spread  it  means  that 
philanthropia  is  taking  his  place  of  Philadelphia, 
the  natural  brotherhood  of  the  supernatural,  pity 
of  faith,  and  man  of  Christ.  The  one  is  taking  the 
place  of  the  other,  instead  of  growing  out  of  it.  The 
true  Christian  love  of  man  is  that  which  blossoms 
on  a  far  deeper  and  more  lively  faith  in  Christ. 
Let  us  not  linger  to  lament  this  state  of  things  but 
let  us  interrogate  it  and  understand  it.  It  means  in- 
ordinate affection  which  is  idolatry.  It  means  the 
loss  of  the  insight  of  holiness.  We  may  be  getting 
ready,  when  the  critical  time  comes,  for  a  blunder 
as  stupendous  as  that  which  Judaism  made.  For 
does  it  matter  at  last  what  amount  of  well-doing 
mark  a  Church ;  will  that  keep  it  a  Church  ?  If 
it  has  lost  the  sense  of  holiness  and  what  is  due  to 
it,  if  it  has  lost  that  worship  and  culture  of  holi- 
ness which  centres  about  a  real  Atonement,  is 
it  not  deserted  by  the  Holy  Spirit  ?  And  unless 
He  return  it  may  be  any  kind  of  admirable  society 
for  the  promotion  of  goodness  and  mercy,  but  it 
ceases  to  be  a  Church.  It  may  contribute  much 
to  civilization,  culture,  and  charity,  as  Judaism 
does  to  this  day,  but  it  ceases  to  be  the  unearthly 
organ  of  the  holy  Kingdom  of  God. 

When  this  dullness  of  spiritual  ethic  rejected  Christ, 
Judaism  kept  the  monotheism  but  lost  the  holiness 
whose  consummation  Christ  was.  And  hence 
Judaism  ever  since,  while   it  has  produced  plenty 


312  The  Preacher  and 

of  geniuses  in  many  kinds,  and  plenty  of  mystics, 
has  not  produced  moral  leaders  for  the  world.  If 
it  has  produced  saints  they  are  not  such  as  have 
by  their  sanctity  impressed  the  world.  It  is  too 
tribal  for  the  last  universahty,  too  narrow,  however 
fine,  in  its  practical  ethic.  The  finer  and  wider 
ethic  of  Judaism  is  no  more  to-day  than  Hillel  was 
in  Pharisaism,  or  Stoicism  in  Greece  and  Rome.  It 
cannot  save  the  situation.  Only  when  ethic  rises 
to  holiness  can  it  become  really  universal ;  and 
only  when  holiness  gets  effect  in  an  Atonement  real 
and  not  symbolic.  The  Atonement  to  God's  holiness 
is  the  focus  of  Christian  {that  is,  of  all)  ethic,  the  one 
meeting-point  of  rehgion  and  morals,  of  grace  and 
conscience,  and  therefore  it  is  the  real  secret  of 
Christ's  universalism.  It  was  the  atoning  Cross  that 
made  Christ  absolutely  human. 

Is  it  not  so  ?  Is  not  the  great  universality  that 
of  the  conscience  ;  and  the  final  universality — is  it 
not  God's  conscience,  that  is,  God's  holiness,  of 
which  the  Cross  is  the  supreme  energy  ?  It  was  in 
Christ  and,  within  Christ,  in  His  Cross  (as  Paul  was 
crushed  to  discover)  that  the  ethical  soul  of  the 
Hebrew  God  broke  into  white  flame.  The  true 
IsraeHtes  always  found  in  Israel's  God  no  mere 
autocrat,  whose  doings  were  limited  only  by  logical 
possibiUty,  but  a  moral  Jehovah,  whose  power 
was  governed  by  the  absolute  hohness  of  His  own 
nature,  and  even  limited  into  history  in  order  to 
achieve  the  purpose  of  that  holiness.  He  led  His 
people  in  the  paths  of   righteousness  for  His  own 


Modern  Ethic  313 

name's  sake.  A  God  of  mercy,  truly,  but  also  a 
God  of  right ;  a  God,  therefore,  whose  passion  of 
mercy  could  act  only  by  way  of  historic  redemption 
into  righteousness.  He  was  a  God  of  grace,  but 
of  grace  that  could  never  sacrifice  His  moral  nature, 
or  simply  waive  His  moral  order.  He  must  honour 
it.  And  He  could  not  simply  honour  it  in  secret, 
bear  the  cost  and  say  nothing  about  it.  That 
would  not  be  to  the  ethical  point.  For  it  would 
not  be  honouring  holiness  where  it  was  defied,  or 
establishing  it  in  the  presence  of  its  enemies.  The 
judge  of  all  the  earth  must  do  public  right.  And, 
besides.  He  was  a  God  of  revelation,  of  self-be- 
stowal. He  must  be  shown  as  honouring  His  own 
holiness  in  the  motive  and  act  of  the  revelation 
itself.  He  must  not  be  revealed  simply  as  one  who 
incidentally  held  His  holiness  in  respect.  But  the 
act  of  revelation  must  be  the  act  of  respect,  the 
self-respect  of  the  holy.  He  must  be  revealed  in 
the  act  of  honouring  it,  honouring  it  by  the  very 
act  that  gave  and  saved.  He  must  pity  in  a  way 
to  set  up  for  ever  the  public  right  and  glory  of  His 
holiness.  That  is  to  say.  He  was  a  God  whose  great 
act  of  grace  was  also,  because  he  was  holy,  a  great 
act  of  judgment.  For  to  Israel  the  Messianic  time 
was  always  a  great  day  of  judgment — terrible,  but 
still  more  glorious  than  terrible,  a  time  of  hope 
more  than  fear.  Such,  then,  was  the  Hebrew  idea 
of  God.  Such  was  God's  revelation  of  Himself  to 
Israel.  It  was  a  revelation,  and  a  God,  supremely 
ethical,   as  being  supremely  holy  —  so  supremely 


314  The  Preacher  and 

holy  that,  from  the  Cross  onwards,  hohness  ceased 
to  be  an  attribute  of  God,  and  became,  in  the 
Holy  Spirit,  a  constituent  father  and  active  sub- 
ject in  the  Godhead  itself. 

This  is  the  God  that  was  in  Christ  reconciling, 
redeeming  the  world.  The  more  we  grasp  this 
function  of  the  Cross  the  more  we  ethicize  it.  And 
it  is  the  only  radical  way  of  ethicizing  it.  To 
moralize  Christianity  anew  we  must  replace  the 
idea  of  judgment  among  all  the  gains  we  have  won 
for  the  other  and  sympathetic  side  of  faith.  The 
consummation  of  this  historic  union  of  grace  and 
judgment  was  in  the  death  of  Christ.  And  as  the 
grace  of  God  was  on  Christ,  and  not  only  through 
Christ  on  us,  so  also  the  judgment  of  God  was  on 
Christ  and  not  only  through  Christ  on  us.  That 
is  the  serious  solemn  point,  disputed  by  many, 
and  to  be  pressed  only  with  a  grave  sense  that  it 
alone  meets  the  moral  demand  of  holiness  and  com- 
pletes it.  Christ  not  only  exercises  the  judgment 
of  God  on  us  ;  He  absorbs  it,  so  that  we  are  judged 
not  only  by  Him  but  in  Him.  And  so  in  Him  we 
are  judged  unto  salvation.  "  The  chastisement 
of  our  peace  was  on  Him." 

In  the  Cross,  then,  we  have  the  ethical  consumma- 
tion, perfect  and  prolific,  of  the  old  paradox  of  grace 
and  judgment.  During  His  life  Christ  was  at  one  time 
pitiful,  at  another  severe.  He  was  merciful  to  one 
class,  and  stern  to  another.  But  in  the  Cross  this 
separation  of  grace  and  j  udgment  disappears,  as  the 
distinction  of  all  times  and  classes  disappears  in  the 


Modern   Ethic  315 

one  issue  of  the  universal  conscience.  And  the  good- 
ness and  the  severity  of  God  are  perfectly  one,  as 
God  is  one  in  His  passion  of  movement  toward  the 
sinner  and  reaction  from  his  sin,  of  grace  to  the  one 
and  wrath  to  the  other. 

It  is  not  wonderful  that  the  Disciples  with  their 
national  past  should  find  in  Christ's  death  something 
else  than  the  priestly  idea  of  sacrifice  symbolized 
in  their  ritual.  They  found  in  Him  a  living  epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  and  not  merely  from  the  Hebrews. 
He  was  as  much  a  manifesto  to  Israel  from  God  as 
from  Israel  to  the  world.  They  found  in  Christ  the 
priest  no  less  than  the  sacrifice.  They  found  also 
this  prophetic  note  of  blended  grace  and  judgment, 
which  made  them  preachers  of  a  Gospel  in  His  death 
rather  than  narrators  of  His  memorable  life.  Even 
in  Paul  there  was  more  Hebraism  than  Judaism, 
far  more  prophet  than  priest.  The  great  prophetic 
note  finds  itself  at  last  in  the  apostolic.  Prophetism 
by  its  very  failure  was  itself  a  prophecy.  Its  holy 
ideal  strained  on  and  up  into  the  Holy  One,  His 
doom,  and  His  work,  wherein  history  changed  key 
into  eternity.  The  Apostles  found  in  the  Cross  that 
involution  of  mercy  and  sanctity,  of  grace  and 
righteousness,  that  revelation  of  sin  as  well  as  love, 
which  met  at  once  the  greatest  intuitions  of  their 
rehgious  history,  and  the  deepest  needs  of  their 
shamed  conscience.  The  Cross,  which  was  the 
chief  shame  of  their  soul,  personal  or  national,  be- 
came their  sure  moral  triumph.  In  it  the  national 
past  found  itself  in  historic  effect,  and  their  personal 


3  1 6  The  Preacher  and 

past  found  itself  in  a  regenerate  life.  Some  of  them 
had  denied  it,  one  had  betrayed,  and  one  had  perse- 
cuted it ;  but  they  all  came  to  find  in  it  a  moral 
power  from  which  they  never  went  back.  It  was 
final  for  them  and  their  hereditary  ideals,  because 
it  was  the  last  judgment  and  the  last  mercy  in  a 
nation  whose  history  and  whose  song  had  all  along 
been  of  mercy  and  judgment.  The  justified  had 
the  last  judgment  behind  them.  The  holy  morality, 
eternal  in  the  heavens,  became  actual  on  earth.  It 
was  the  Holy  made  Sin,  the  absolute  moral  miracle — 
or  else  the  merest  ingenuity  of  nonsense. 

§ 

A  gospel  which  is  not  final  is  a  mere  programme 
of  reform,  and  there  is  no  finality  in  any  Gospel  which 
ignores  the  moral  element  of  j  udgment  in  God's  revela- 
tion of  love.  And  therefore  there  is  in  such  a  Gospel 
no  indefectible  power.  Yet  that  element  is  widely 
ignored  in  the  popular  Gospel  of  sympathy  which  has 
replaced  the  once  popular  Gospel  of  orthodoxy. 
The  primacy  usurped  by  the  intellect  has  been  taken 
by  the  humane  affections  instead  of  the  evan- 
gelical conscience.  Judgment  has  ceased  to  be 
preached  as  an  essential  factor  in  a  revelation  of 
holy  love.  Where  it  is  preached  it  is  often  in  crude 
forms,  without  insight,  and  with  non-moral  associ- 
ations which  rob  it  of  its  practical  power.  It  is 
preached  as  "the  last  day"  or  the  "great  assize"  or 
the  "  quenchless  fire."  But  it  is  useless  to  put  judg- 
ment at  the  close  of  history  if  it  have  not  a  decisive 


Modern   Ethic  317 

place  at  the  centre  of  history.  Indeed  it  is  impossi- 
ble. The  judgment  day  of  the  great  future  assize 
draws  its  true  solemnity  of  meaning  from  the  judg- 
ment day  in  Pilate's  hall.  To  repudiate  as  mere 
theology  this  element  of  judgment  in  the  Cross,  to 
ehminate  the  awe  of  it  from  our  practical  habit  of 
piety,  is  to  subside  in  due  course  into  a  non-ethical 
religion,  which  finally  becomes  but  a  sweetened 
paganism.  For  it  is  in  the  moral  element  in 
the  Cross  that  the  real  differentia  of  Christianity 
comes  to  light.  It  is  the  Cross,  and  it  is  this  in 
the  Cross,  that  makes  Christ  more  than  man. 
The  Incarnation  as  an  article  of  our  faith  rests 
on  our  experience  of  the  Atonement  alone,  on 
our  ethical  experience  there,  on  the  treatment  of 
our  sin  there,  on  what  God  found  precious  and 
divine  there.  Christ  must  be  chiefly  for  us  what 
He  is  chiefly  to  God.  We  press  to  a  historic  view 
of  Christ  and  we  do  well ;  but  we  must  do  better, 
and  press  stiU  more  to  the  theological  view  of  Him, 
which  sets  out  what  He  is  to  God.  We  must  learn  to 
regard  Him  as  God  does.  And  that  is  as  the  consort 
of  His  throne,  in  whose  Cross  and  its  judgment  the 
Eternal  holiness  found  itself  for  the  universe  again. 
To  minimize  the  judgment  really  effected  on  evil 
in  the  Cross  once  for  all  is  to  subside  into  a  humane 
paganism,  in  which,  after  due  and  usual  course,  the 
paganism  will  submerge  the  humanity.  Our  gentler, 
sweeter,  more  sympathetic  piety  will  show  itself, 
as  it  often  does  show  itself,  unable  to  bear  up  our 
public  life  against  the  moral  declensions,  seductions, 


3  1 8  The  Preacher  and 

vulgarities,  and  crimes  of  a  too  rich,  prosperous  and 
miserable  world.  Some  sweet  and  facile  evangelicals 
have  had  a  bad  business  name.  You  might  thus  find 
a  charming  and  pious  home,  where  yet  the  business 
activity  of  its  head  could  best  be  described  as  preying 
on  the  public.  People  object  to  the  pagan  suggestions 
of  a  word  like  expiation.  But  it  is  the  want  of  the 
thing,  truly  and  ethically  understood,  that  is  the 
real  pagan  danger,  the  absence  of  any  satisfaction 
in  holiness  to  the  grieved  hoUness  of  God.  It  is  a 
satisfaction  which  man,  as  he  came  to  his  senses, 
would  insist  on  making,  even  if  God  did  not  insist 
on  providing  it.  For  this  lack  the  conscience  of 
the  Church  comes  short  at  its  creative  centre — 
just  as  it  came  short  when  to  expiation  was  given 
but  the  pagan  and  unmoral  sense  of  mollification. 
The  conscience  of  the  Church  loses  its  moral 
source  and  bracing  school.  And  Christianity  falls 
victim  to  fanciful  subjectivity,  bustUng  energies, 
religious  romancers,  or  the  fireside  pieties. 

These  things  are  attractive  enough  to  a  humanist 
age  and  to  half-culture.  And  they  take  often  far 
nobler  and  graver  forms  than  would  be  suggested 
by  the  words  I  have  just  used  to  describe  their  effect 
in  many.  But  they  are  ineffectual  for  the  great 
public  purposes  of  the  Kingdom.  They  are  in- 
effectual against  the  pagan  ethic  of  the  natural 
man,  or  a  society  full  of  moral  failures  and  moral 
vulgarities.  If  the  death  of  Christ  be  preached 
only  for  the  ■pathos  of  its  effect  on  us  and  not  for 
the  ethos  of  its  effect  on  God,  we  lack  that  prime 


Modern   Ethic  319 

hallowing  of  His  name  which  exercises  on  us  the  pro- 
foundest  moral  effect  of  all,  and  which  bases  our  ethic 
on  holiness  immutable  and  eternal.  For,  as  I  have 
already  said,  the  spectacle  of  Christ  dealing  with 
God  for  us  and  our  sin  moves  us  more  deeply  than 
the  spectacle  of  Christ  dealing  with  us  for  God. 
As  our  priest  and  victim  he  is  far  more  subduing 
than  as  a  prophet  of  the  Lord.  Yet  each  without 
the  other  is  false.  It  is  a  redemption  by  revealed 
grace  through  effective  judgment  that  is  the  moral 
principle  of  social  regeneration.  Whether  the  public 
take  or  refuse  the  dogmas  of  theologians  as  such  is  a 
light  matter.  But  it  is  a  great  matter  if  the  dogmas 
of  the  theologians  cover  living  powers  and  moral  ener- 
gies, by  which  society  stands  or  falls.  And  that  is 
the  aspect  of  theology  by  which  theology  and  society 
will  stand  or  fall — the  aspect  of  it  which  equips  the 
preacher  to  be  not  only  a  voice  but  an  authority  to 
his  time.  Public  freedom  at  last  depends  on  spiritual 
freedom,  and  spiritual  freedom  is  not  in  human 
nature  but  in  its  redemption.  And  the  first  principle 
of  the  Christian  redemption  is  the  holy  recog- 
nition of  God's  wounded  holiness,  its  holy  satisfaction 
in  Christ's  holy  obedience  amid  the  last  conditions 
of  human  wickedness.  The  moral  perfection  of 
our  race  is  to  offer  that  obedience  in  sequel  and  in 
detail.  Man's  chief  end  is  not  to  make  the  most  of 
himself,  but  to  glorify  a  holy  God  by  the  holiness 
which  alone  can  satisfy  hohness.  And  that  is  what 
sinful  man  can  do  only  in  the  power  of  the  atoning 
hohness  of  Christ. 


320  The  Preacher  and 

§ 

I  know  there  are  those  whom  we  have  great  reason 
to  honour,  who  press  duly  into  the  heart  of  the 
Atonement  with  the  lamp  of  modern  ethic,  but  who 
light  their  lamp  at  the  social  and  moral  relation 
of  fatherhood.  That,  they  say,  is  the  one  key 
put  into  our  hands,  by  the  very  constitution  of 
society,  for  the  moral  world.  The  true  authentic 
word  of  the  conscience  is  the  word  of  father  and 
son.  The  pillar  and  ground  of  social  ethic  is  the 
family.  It  was  this  Word  that  Christ  took  up  and 
clothed  with  eternal  vahdity.  It  was  the  Father 
He  preached,  and  for  the  Father  He  died.  It  was 
in  the  name  of  a  disowned  Father  that  He  dealt 
with  the  conscience.  It  was  to  a  holy  Father  that 
He  offered  His  own  conscience.  And  He  retrieved 
our  case  by  His  perfect  sympathetic  unity  with 
His  Father  on  the  one  hand,  and  with  His  brethren 
on  the  other.  Accordingly,  this  theory  is  offered 
as  a  real  and  near  point  of  attachment  for  the 
preacher  who  has  to  address  people  that  care  more 
for  their  famihes  than  anything  else — Bible,  Church 
or  Gospel. 

But  do  they  who  speak  thus  go  to  the  bottom 
of  their  own  plea  that  it  was  to  a  Holy  Father 
that  Christ  offered  His  own  conscience  ?  Do  they 
grasp  the  fact  that  it  was  not  in  the  Fatherhood 
but  in  the  holiness  of  it  that  Christ's  originahty  lay  ? 
Do  they  realize  the  immense  difference  it  makes  when 
we  extend  the  fatherhood  which  we  learn  in  the 
small  kind  area  of  family  sympathy,  to  a  universal 


Modern   Ethic  321 

fatherhood — a  fatherhood  which  is  the  guardian 
of  the  whole  moral  order,  amidst  warring  interests, 
and  of  the  absolute  holiness  of  the  Eternal  against 
those  who  hate  the  holy  for  its  holiness  ?  Are  the 
paternal  affections  the  only,  or  the  chief  interest  of 
history  ?  Is  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
the  crucified  simply  a  magnified  and  supernatural 
sire  ?  Had  Jesus  much  of  the  family  feeling  ?  Was 
His  family  experience  quite  happy  ?  Was  Joseph 
a  type  that  he  had  simply  to  enlarge  to  find  God  ? 
Where  do  we  find  the  authority  for  erecting  the 
house-father,  at  his  spiritual  best,  into  God  ? 
The  reply  is  of  course  that  the  authority  is 
Christ,  Well,  we  all  admit  that  Christ  is  our 
authority.  The  question  only  begins  after  that. 
What  aspect  or  action  of  Christ  is  selected  as  the 
vehicle  of  the  supreme  revelation  ?  Where  in 
Christ  is  the  oracle  of  the  Father's  will  ?  Where 
is  the  Father's  authentic  Word  ?  Where  is  the 
revelation  of  the  Father  ?  Surely  in  the  act  into 
which  was  put  the  whole  life  and  pesonality  of 
the  Son.  Surely  in  the  redeeming  act,  if  the  main 
work  of  a  Father  or  a  Son,  in  a  case  like  ours, 
be  redemption.  Surely  in  the  Cross.  Everjrthing 
turns  on  the  interpretation  of  the  Cross.  And 
what  is  to  interpret  it  ?  Must  it  not  interpret  it- 
self, and  all  else,  if  it  be  the  focus  of  revelation  ? 
Must  not  the  redemption  it  brings  to  pass  create  in 
us  the  power  to  interpret  it  ?  Must  it  not  be 
interpreted  by  its  effect  rather  than  by  its  ante- 
cedents ?     Antecedents  may  account  for  it,  explain 

21 


322  The  Preacher  and 

it,  but  not  interpret  it.  All  great  interpretation 
is  teleological.  The  supreme  spiritual  events  have 
their  meaning  either  in  themselves,  or  in  their 
outcome,  rather  than  in  their  provenance.  That 
is  the  Christian  way  of  treating  evolution.  The 
interpretation  of  the  series  is  at  its  summit.  It  is 
man  that  interprets  the  world,  and  not  the  world 
man.  And,  by  the  same  principle,  as  it  is  Christ 
that  interprets  Israel,  so  it  is  the  Cross  that  inter- 
prets Christ.  It  is  not  the  teaching  of  Jesus  that 
interprets  the  Cross  ;  it  is  the  Cross  that  interprets 
the  teaching  of  Jesus.  It  may  have  been  so  even 
to  Himself.  On  that  I  cannot  enter  here.  I  will 
only  express  my  conviction  that,  unless  Christ  was 
principally  a  teacher  aiming  at  a  right  interpretation 
of  God,  rather  than  a  Redeemer  effecting  the 
righteous  action  of  God  in  the  reconstruction  of 
man,  it  is  to  the  Cross  we  must  look  for  the  true 
interpretation  of  Fatherhood  in  Him.  The  Cross 
interprets  the  Father,  not  the  Father  the  Cross.  And 
that  interpretation  was  seized  and  given  by  John, 
when  the  Cross  had  had  more  of  its  perfect  work — in 
John  with  his  manifold  insistence  upon  the  Holy 
Father.  The  nature  of  the  Cross  is  more  revealed 
in  the  adjective  than  in  the  noun.  It  is  the  adjec- 
tive there  that  represents  the  Cross's  own  inter- 
pretation of  itself.  We  thus  understand  the  insight 
of  Luther  when  he  foimd  the  true  commentary 
on  Christ  in  the  Epistles  rather  than  the  Gospels. 
I  am  afraid  the  thinkers  whom  I  regret  here  to 
oppose  use  an  analogy  as  a  revelation.    They  over- 


Modern   Ethic  323 

look  the  fact  that  the  seat  of  revelation  must  be 
sought  in  the  centre  of  redemption  ;  that  it  Hes  not 
in  our  experience,  paternal  or  filial,  but  in  our 
faith  of  salvation  ;  and  that  all  Christ  ever  said 
about  God  has  its  true  gloss  only  in  what  He  did 
about  God,  and  still  in  our  conscience  does.  And 
through  the  effect  of  the  Cross  upon  the  whole 
conscience,  and  especially  upon  the  sinful  saved 
conscience,  we  are  driven  to  think  of  its  prime 
action  as  being  objective  upon  God,  or  upon  the  evil 
power,  or  both.  It  is  there  that  we  have  the  chief 
source  even  of  its  effect  on  us.  The  chief  value  of 
the  Cross  is  its  value  for  God,  rather  than  for  man. 
If  that  be  so  we  must  not  allow  ourselves  to  be 
led  by  either  our  affections,  or  even  the  seeming 
words  of  Christ,  to  interpret  the  Fatherhood  of 
God  as  the  apotheosis  of  the  natural  heart  and  of  the 
sympathetic,  endlessly  patient  and  hospitable  sire. 
If  the  Cross  and  not  paternity  is  the  supreme 
locus  of  the  conscience  of  the  race,  if,  that  is, 
it  be  a  historic  locus  and  not  a  sociological, 
then  our  effort  to  ethicize  faith  must  begin  with 
the  ethic  of  the  Cross.  We  must  not  start 
to  ethicize  the  Cross  at  a  standard  of  fatherhood 
brought  from  elsewhere,  whether  that  elsewhere 
be  in  social  psychology,  in  the  voice  of  our  affections, 
or  even  in  the  words  of  Christ  Himself.  My  case 
would  be  that  the  highest  ethic  is  the  ethic  of 
holiness  ;  and  that  we  cannot  bring  that  ethic  to  the 
Cross  to  explain  it,  but  we  must  draw  it  from  the 
supreme  assertion  of  holiness,  from  the  Cross   and 


324  The  Preacher  and 

its  revelation  in  the  conscience  it  redeems.  I 
hope  it  may  not  be  thought  an  unfair  thing  to 
say  that,  as  the  great  jubilants  of  the  Cross  have 
been  the  great  sinners  it  saved,  so  its  great  inter- 
preters are  men  who,  ceteris  paribus,  have  that 
scorching  of  hell  upon  them,  even  in  heaven,  which 
so  many  who  are  interested  in  theology  seem  to 
lack.  And  because  of  the  lack,  when  they  seek 
to  ethicize  they  but  humanize.  They  have  more 
humane  sympathy  than  evangelical  experience. 
But  the  Cross  comes  with  its  own  ethic  in  broken 
and  contrite  men.  All  that  is  provided  by  the  new 
ethical  or  paternal  interest  in  modern  society  is  a 
congenial  nidus  for  Christian  ethic  ;  it  does  not 
provide  the  illuminative  principle.  The  Cross  is 
reaUy  luminous  only  where  it  is  active.  It  is  its 
own  energy  that  makes  its  own  light.  And  its 
truest  interpreters,  ceteris  paribus,  are  the  sinners  it 
has  plucked  from  the  gates  of  death  and  the 
mouth  of  hell.  The  greatest  apostolate  is  made  out 
of  deserters  or  persecutors,  of  prodigals  more  than 
model  sons. 

§ 

The  Church  has  very  properly  returned  to  a  scrip- 
tural interest  in  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Her  theolo- 
gians, like  Ritschl,  have  led  the  way,  and  her 
preachers  press  the  new  ideal.  But  it  does  not  seem 
to  meet  from  the  mass  of  Christians  a  response 
which  corresponds  to  the  enthusiasm  for  it  of  the 
pulpit.  It  falls  on  many  as  a  somewhat  archaic 
conception,  too  small  and  primitive  for  the  compass 


Modern   Ethic  325 

of  a  modern  and  complex  society.  And  why  ? 
For  one  reason  because  its  advocates  so  often  for- 
get that  it  was  only  the  Cross  that  founded  it,  it 
was  universalized  by  the  Cross,  the  apostolic  Cross 
first  gave  it  range  and  currency.  When  Christ 
had  overcome  the  sharpness  of  death  He  opened 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  to  all  believers.  People 
plant  themselves  too  exclusively  on  Christ's  teach- 
ing of  the  Kingdom — often  expressed  in  forms  more 
germane  to  the  first  century  than  the  twentieth, 
and  to  the  East  rather  than  to  the  West.  The 
Saviour  is  really  a  more  modem  idea  in  these 
democratic  days  than  the  King  ;  and  the  Cross  has 
an  ethical  significance  more  immortal  than  the 
kingdom.  In  construing  the  social  relations  by 
Christianity,  therefore,  our  first  duty  is  not  to 
analyse  the  metaphor  of  the  Kingdom.  Christ  has 
given  us  the  thing,  Christ  Himself  translated  the 
metaphor  into  reality  for  us  by  His  death.  He  was 
condemned  because  of  His  claim  to  be  a  king,  and 
"  He  did  not  die  for  a  metaphor."  It  was  there 
that  He  really  founded  the  revelation,  not  in  His 
parables,  prophecies,  or  precepts.  These  were 
addressed  to  Jews.  And  some  of  them  are  heavily 
coated  with  the  apocalyptic  colour  of  the  time.  Our 
first  charge  in  the  ethic  and  service  of  the  Kingdom 
is  to  accept  and  apply  love  as  we  find  it  in  Christ 
crucified,  as  saving  holy  grace.  All  the  Kingdom  is 
latent  in  that  Cross.  All  its  ethic  has  its  creative 
centre  there.  Christian  ethic  consists  in  living  out 
the  life  of  the  Cross  freely  in  the  Spirit,  rather  than  in 


326 


The  Preacher  and 


obeying  all  the  precepts  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
as  precepts,  which  but  leads  to  the  attractive 
crudities  of  Tolstoi.  The  true  nature  and  universality 
of  the  Kingdom  broke  out  in  the  Cross.  It  was 
Christ's  first  and  final  appeal  to  the  world  as  distinct 
from  Israel.  There,  for  instance,  the  true  charter  of 
missions  lies,  not  in  certain  injunctions,  or  "  march- 
ing orders,"  which  are  at  the  mercy  of  criticism. 
Accordingly  the  doctrine  of  Christianity  as  an 
ellipse,  with  its  two  centres  of  the  Kingdom  and 
the  Cross,  wiU  not  hold  good.  If  we  speak  of  two 
centres  they  must  represent  the  two  great  categories 
for  interpreting  the  Cross — Reconciliation  and  Re- 
demption, which  pass  but  do  not  fade  into  each 
other.  We  have  but  the  one  centre  of  the  Cross 
for  the  Kingdom,  for  the  new  humanity,  and  for 
its  ethic.  Even  in  the  Lord's  Prayer  we  have 
the  Cross  before  the  Kingdom.  The  hallowing  of 
God's  name  is  a  prior  interest  to  the  coming  of  the 
Kingdom.  It  is  the  action  in  the  heavens  which  is 
the  constant  prelude  of  the  doing  of  God's  will  on 
earth.  The  Eternal  Spirit  of  Christ's  self-oblation  to 
God  is  the  inspiration  of  the  new  world.  There  we 
find  the  resources  of  the  Kingdom  in  one  fontal  act 
where  that  eternal  sacrifice  looks  forth.  And  it  is 
there  that  we  find  it  in  the  ethical  form  native  to 
the  inner  Israel,  and  equally  relevant  to  every  age. 
There  we  have  the  focus  of  that  moral  eternity 
of  action,  that  spiritual  universe  of  energy,  which 
is  the  contemporary  of  every  age,  and  therefore 
is   always    modern.     Christian    ethic    in   Christian 


Modern    Ethic  327 

society  is  the  mutual  relation  of  sons,  not  un- 
der a  loving  father,  but  under  a  certain  kind  of 
loving  father — under  the  Father  revealed  by  a 
Cross  whose  first  concern  was  holiness  and  the 
dues  of  holiness.  See  what  manner  of  love 
the  Father  hath  bestowed  on  us.  God  so  loved 
that  He  gave  His  Son  to  be  a  propitiation  and  to 
hallow  His  name.  It  was  not  enough  that  evil 
should  be  mastered ;  holiness  had  to  be  set  up  and 
secured  in  history.  And  the  continuous  agent 
of  that  holiness  is  the  conscience  in  us  which  was 
first  created  on  the  Cross  by  the  offering  of  holiness 
to  the  Holy  One.  The  prime  vocation  of  the  society 
of  the  Cross  is  holiness  imto  the  Lord.  And  as 
human  society  grows  more  Christian  this  must 
become  its  waxing  note.  It  sounds  the  dominant 
over  all — even  over  love.  It  is  the  power,  the 
life,  which  all  love  serves.  If  we  are  to  fill  life 
full,  and  spread  the  reign  of  love,  let  us  preach 
the  holy  God,  and  the  Cross  where  He  is  at  His 
fullest  and  Holiest  of  all.  Our  Gospel  is  not  simply 
God  is  love,  but  God's  love  is  holy,  for  the  Holy 
One  is  love. 

What  is  this  final  appeal  even  of  love  to  holiness 
but  asserting  for  God  what  everything  that  is  best 
in  modern  life  tends  to  assert  for  man — the  primacy 
of  the  moral,  the  supremacy  of  life  and  will  to 
thought  or  truth.  What  is  it  but  the  ethicizing  of 
rehgion.  For  God  the  moral  and  the  supreme  is  His 
holy  will  of  love.  You  cannot  ethicize  either  re- 
ligion or  life  without  adjusting  it  to  the  holiness  of 


328  The  Preacher  and 

God.  And  that  practical  adjustment,  objective 
and  subjective,  was  Christ's  work  in  the  atoning 
Cross.  Pardon  is  the  perpetual  demand  of  our 
actual  moral  situation.  And  pardon  is  only  pardon, 
not  when  it  wipes  the  slate,  but  as  it  is  the  su- 
preme expression  and  establishment  of  moral  reality. 
Its  conditions  are  those  required  by  moral  reality 
on  an  eternal  scale — that  is,  by  the  holy. 

f 

What  an  advantage,  then,  the  preacher  of  holiness 
as  it  is  in  the  Cross  has  in  addressing  the  society 
of  these  days,  set  upon  moral  righteousness  as  it 
never  was  before.  For  both  the  Cross  and  the 
public  the  moral  is  the  first  thing.  I  do  not  mean 
that  the  preacher  should  preach  the  moral  philo- 
sophy of  the  Cross,  or  confine  himself  to  Christian 
ethics,  but  he  has  to  preach  a  Gospel  which  has 
supreme  in  its  heart  this  moral  note  of  holy  grace 
and  judgment  love ;  and  he  preaches  it  to  a  public 
in  which  the  moraJ  passion  is  rising  steadily.  The 
modern  appeal  to  the  will  is  the  native  note  of 
the  Christian  apostle,  the  appeal  to  the  moral  will, 
to  the  conscience. 

There  is  nothing  you  will  oftener  hear  from  pulpits 
that  strive  to  be  abreast  of  things  than  this  :  "  Christi- 
anity is  not  a  creed  ;  it  is  a  life."  What  is  meant 
by  it  ?  Not  surely  that  Christianity  is  but  a 
certain  course  or  manner  of  living.  That  drops 
all  to  mere  moralism.  Not  that  it  is  a  way  of  feeling, 
a  certain  sympathetic  strain.   That  makes  it  a  senti- 


Modern   Ethic  329 

mentalism.  Not  that  it  is  simply  the  copying  of 
a  heroic  example.  That  makes  it  a  depressing 
legalism,  or  a  no  less  depressing  idealism.  If  it  mean 
anjdihing  it  surely  means  that  Christianity  is  a 
solution  of  the  problem  of  life,  which  is  a  moral 
problem.  And  Christianity  means  still  more,  giving 
us  the  moral  solution  of  life  as  a  present.  Here  is 
another  paradox — the  gift  of  a  moral  achievement, 
moral  victory,  as  a  present.  You  can  compare  it 
with  that  parallel  audacity  "  The  Father  hath  given 
the  Son  to  have  life  in  Himself.  Such  is  the  secret 
of  Christianity  and  such  its  gift — the  gift  of  a  hfe  that 
masters  the  supreme  moral  condition  of  holiness — 
eternal  life,  as  it  was  achieved  in  the  Cross,  in  the 
holy  satisfaction  of  the  Cross.  Such  is  the  paradox 
of  the  cross,  its  alogical  nature,  its  defiance  of  a 
perfectly  consistent  theology,  its  ethical  offence  to 
monism,  its  inner  contradiction  as  the  only  ade- 
quate harmony  of  religious  experience,  its  duaUsm 
as  the  only  condition  of  the  moral  and  holy  life. 


This  Gospel  appeals  not  only  to  the  strength  oi 
modern  society — its  interest  in  righteousness,  and  in 
a  social  righteousness — but  also  to  its  weakness. 
Because  the  weakness  of  the  hour  (for  all  our 
ethical  progress)  is  a  moral  weakness.  In  every 
other  respect  society  is  stronger  than  it  ever 
was  before.  Never  was  man's  mastery  of  the 
world  so  complete.  Never  had  he  such  resources 
in  dealing  with  it,  and  compelling  it  to  his  purpose. 


330  The  Preacher  and 

Yes,  but  it  is  the  matter  of  his  purpose  that  is  the 
weak  place.  What  is  his  purpose  when  he  has 
one  ?  What  is  to  repair  his  lack  of  one  ?  Our 
trouble  is  the  paganism  of  the  age,  with  its  moral 
hollo wness  and  its  shell  of  self-confidence.  On 
the  one  side  you  have  the  weakness  of  over-energy — 
men  engrossed  with  practical  activity,  like  old 
Rome,  till  they  have  neither  leisure  nor  power  to 
note  the  crumbling  of  their  moral  interior.  That  you 
may  have  in  a  young  country.  And,  on  the  other 
hand,  you  have  what  you  find  in  the  old  and  deca- 
dent lands — the  weakness  of  no-energy,  the  hebetude 
of  the  outworn,  the  failure  of  will,  the  lack  of  moral 
interest.  You  have  the  conscience  narcotised  by 
civilization,  by  science,  by  culture,  by  religion, 
by  morality  itself.  All  these  things  conspire  to 
stifle  in  the  conscience  the  deepest  issues  which 
drive  us  to  the  Cross.  Even  religion  in  this  respect 
can  be  very  mischievous  to  Christianity,  on  the 
principle  that  the  good  is  the  enemy  of  the  best. 
And  at  the  extreme  end  you  have  the  moral  para- 
Ij^ics,  who  find  life  no  longer  worth  living  except 
in  moments  of  some  kind  of  intoxication ;  you 
have  the  moral  degenerates  or  cretins,  the  victims 
of  the  age's  overfed  individualism  and  its  moral 
fatigue,  who  live  in  a  perpetual  depression  because 
they  have  no  motives  ;  and  you  have  the  moral 
melancholies  and  irresolutes,  who,  by  the  very 
wealth  of  their  ideas,  have  so  many  motives  that 
they  are  imable  to  choose  any  one  of  them.  I 
am  thinking  on  the  one  hand  of  the  famous  Melan- 


Modem  Ethic  331 

cholia  of  Diirer,  limp  and  listless  in  the  midst  of 
all  the  resources  of  science  and  art.  I  think  on 
the  other  hand  of  a  victim  of  "  psychological  ru- 
mination "  so  noble  yet  so  over-interested  as  Amiel. 
And  between  these  two  extremes  you  have  a  varied 
gamut  of  people  whose  trouble  is  moral  marasmus, 
and  who  so  often  leap  at  the  manifold  quackeries  of 
volitional  religion,  or  self-salvation,  or  will-idolatry. 
They  all  betray  a  narcotised  conscience,  a  light  sense 
and  a  light  healing  of  our  mortal  wounds.  Nothing 
reveals  the  incompetency  of  much  popular  rehgion 
more  than  its  inabihty  to  gauge  the  poignancy 
of  the  moral  situation  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  true 
depth  of  the  moral  resources  of  Christianity  on 
the  other. 

§ 
In  those  circumstances  let  the  preacher  who  is 
sure  be  of  new  cheer.  It  is  the  prophet's  oppor- 
tunity. The  conscience  of  society  is  awake  but 
it  is  not  illuminated ;  and  where  illuminated  it 
has  not  power.  It  is  awake  enough  to  cry  for  a 
redemption,  but  not  enough  to  take  the  Christian 
redemption  home,  far  less  to  bring  it  to  pass  around. 
It  is  power  for  the  conscience  the  preacher  brings. 
His  great  object  is  not  to  produce  either  loving 
aifections  or  correct  views  of  Christian  truth, 
whether  broad  or  narrow,  neither  sympathies, 
liberalisms,  nor  orthodoxies,  but  the  moral  power 
of  the  Christian  Gospel.  The  correct  science 
of  our  faith  is  all  very  well,  but,  whether  old  or 
new,  it  is  not  faith.     And  the  ethics  of  love,  gather- 


332  The  Preacher  and 

ing  about  the  dear  person  of  Christ,  is  very  well, 
but  it  is  only  a  partial  solution  of  the  problem 
offered  us  by  the  world.  That  is  a  moral,  a 
practical  problem,  a  problem  not  of  the  sympathies, 
but  of  the  will  and  conscience.  The  ethic  of  love 
has  more  effect  on  those  who  are  in  the  Church 
than  on  the  world.  It  moves  chiefly  the  already 
well  disposed.  It  is  a  Gospel  for  the  sensitive.  And 
it  lacks  the  note  of  authority  which  is  the  modern 
world's  chief  need,  and  which  is  heard  in  its  power, 
not  in  the  heart  but  the  conscience.  Authority's 
seat  and  source  is  not  God's  love,  but  God's  hoUness. 
Have  I  not  said  that  the  love  in  God  must  itself 
rest  on  the  holiness  of  God,  that  we  can  trust  love 
with  real  faith  only  if  it  show  itself  absolutely 
holy.  That  is  to  say,  the  Church's  Word,  the 
preacher's  Word,  must  issue  from  a  Gospel  not 
of  love  alone  but  of  holy  love.  It  sounds  from  a 
Cross  which  does  not  merely  show  love  but  honours 
hohness.  It  flows  from  a  grace  which  does  not 
merely  display  compassion,  but  effects  judgment, 
achieves  redemption,  does  the  one  deed  demanded 
in  the  real  moral  situation  by  the  holy  authority  of 
God.  The  Word  of  grace  is  a  deed  of  God.  And 
the  answer  of  faith  must  be  a  deed  no  less.  Faith  is 
not  a  sympathy  but  an  act.  It  is  the  moral  victory 
that  overcomes  the  active  world  by  an  act  greater 
still,  inspired  from  a  world  more  active  still  The 
faith  that  the  preacher  would  stir  is  the  greatest 
of  moral  deeds.  It  searches  the  deep  and  devious 
recesses  of    the  conscience  upon  the  scale  of  the 


Modern  Ethic  333 


whole  world — yea  of  the  holy  world  unseen.  And 
it  breeds  that  new  mystic  life  which  is  the  only 
condition  of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth 
wherein  dwells  holiness.  "  This  is  the  work  of 
God  that  they  should  believe  in  Him  whom  He 
hath  sent  to  be  a  propitiation  for  us." 

May  I  resume  ?  The  history  of  the  world  morally 
viewed  is  a  tragedy.  All  the  great  tragedy  of  the 
world  turns  upon  its  guilt.  Aeschylus,  Shakespeare, 
Goethe,  Ibsen,  all  tell  it  you.  The  solution  of  the 
world,  therefore,  is  what  destroys  its  guilt.  And 
nothing  can  destroy  guilt  but  the  very  holiness  that 
makes  guilt  guilt.  And  that  destruction  is  the 
work  of  Christ  upon  His  Cross,  the  Word  of  Life 
Eternal  in  your  hands  and  in  your  souls.  The 
relevancy  of  His  Cross  is  not  to  a  church,  or  a  sect, 
or  a  creed,  but  to  the  total  moral  world  in  its  actual 
radical  case.  The  moral  world,  I  say,  is  the  real 
world,  the  ever  modern  world.  And  the  supreme 
problem  of  the  moral  world  is  sin.  Its  one  need 
is  to  be  forgiven.  And  nothing  but  holiness  can 
forgive.  Love  cannot.  We  are  both  forgiven  and 
redeemed  in  Jesus  Christ  and  in  Him  as  crucified 
unto  the  world  for  the  holiness  of  God  and  the  sin 
of  men. 

APPENDIX    (p.  308) 

There  is  one  qualification  which  has  to  be  made,  however, 
when  we  use  the  Pragmatism  or  Voluntarism  of  recent 
philosophy  as  a  calculus  for  the  specific  action  of  Christianity, 
Action  is  indeed  the  material  of  truth  {}Vesen-=- Actus)  — the 


334  The  Preacher  and 

organ,  too,  by  which  we  reach  it  as  well  as  spread  it,  and  be- 
come true  as  well  as  see  true.  But  we  have  to  do  with  some- 
thing more  than  the  action  either  of  nature,  of  men,  or  of 
mankind.  To  faU  back  thus  on  the  will,  energy,  or  resource 
of  man  is  to  make  rehgion  in  the  end  impossible,  except 
by  a  kind  of  moral  positivism  which  leaves  humanity  to 
worship  but  itself  and  its  deed.  What  we  have  to  realize  is 
a  spiritual  world  not  simply  in  man  but  in  which  man  is, 
a  world  that  has  to  temper  him  and  master  him,  that  has  to 
prevent  him  from  taking  his  needs,  passions  and  energies 
for  charter  or  standard,  a  world  that  has  to  stand  over 
him,  test  him,  sift  him,  lift  him,  and  end  by  setting  him 
on  a  totally  different  base  from  the  egotism  in  which  he 
began.  That  is,  we  have  to  do,  above  all,  not  simply  with 
an  ideal  world  of  process,  but  with  a  spiritual  world  of  value. 

And  this  spiritual  world  is  not  quiescent  but  active. 
It  does  not  simply  envelop  us,  it  acts  on  us,  and  we  react 
on  it ;  and  in  that  reaction  we  find  ourselves,  and  we 
grow  into  spiritual  persons  with  which  we  never  set  out. 
It  does  not  swathe  us  and  erase  us,  it  besets  us,  it  applies 
itself  to  us.  It  does  not  simply  stand  at  the  door,  or  pass 
and  suck  us  into  its  wake ;  it  knocks,  enters,  finds,  and 
saves  us — all  in  the  way  of  creating  our  moral  personality 
and  giving  us  to  ourselves  by  rescuing  us  from  ourselves.  It 
is  an  active  not  a  static  world.     It  moves,  it  works,  it  creates. 

Its  movement  is  not  process,  as  so  many  to-day  are 
seduced  to  construe  it,  in  the  wake  of  the  great  cosmic 
processionahst  and  marshal,  Hegel,  with  his  stafE  of  sub- 
ordinate evolutionists.  This  of  Hegel's,  indeed,  is  a  con- 
ception which  lifts  us  over  much  of  the  triviahty  and  slavery 
of  hfe  ;  but  only  to  substitute  for  petty  bondage  a  vast 
tyranny,  and  to  replace  a  prison  by  a  despotism,  with  a 
first  show  of  freedom  but  a  final  atmosphere  of  death.  And 
especially  it  leaves  us  with  a  loss  of  moral  liberty,  and 
ethical  dignity,  and  spiritual  initiative  and  personal  con- 
summation. The  actual  course  of  history  is  not  a  process. 
And  it  is  not  through  yielding  to  a  process  that  history  is 
created  by  its  great  actors.  There  are  stagnations,  too,  de- 
generations, enmities  which  forbid  us  to  call  life  a  process, 


Modern   Ethic  335 

at  the  same  time  as  they  prevent  us  from  treating  its 
movement  as  our  being  rolled  over  and  ground  up  in  a 
greater  process.  Mere  process  ends  in  mechanism,  coarse 
or  fine,  and  extinguishes  a  soul.  Behind  everything  that 
seems  process  on  any  large  scale  our  active  moral  soul 
insists  on  placing  an  act,  and  an  act  from  a  new  world — • 
something  ethical  and  personal  in  its  kind. 

If  this  spiritual  world,  so  active,  be  one  ;  if  we  are 
to  escape  pluralism,  as  well  as  monism ;  if  we  are  not 
to  escape  being  rolled  over  by  a  vast  process  only  to  be 
crushed  by  the  active  but  awful  collision  of  more  spiritual 
worlds  than  one  ;  then  its  action  must  be  one  infinite  and 
unitary  concursus,  one  compendious  personal  act,  the  actus 
purus  of  an  infinite  personality  who  is  not  only  ethical  but 
self-suf&cient  in  his  ethic.  But  what  is  an  infinite  morcJ 
self-sufficiency,  an  active,  changeless,  self-completeness, 
but  holiness.  The  total  action  of  the  spiritual  world  both 
in  us  and  around  is  holiness.  We  find  ourselves  before  and 
within  a  holy  God,  a  spiritually  moral  personality,  self- 
determined  and  self-complete. 

But  no  less,  if  this  spiritual  world  and  power  be  universal, 
it  must  assert  itself  supremely  in  the  region  of  history.  If 
its  inmost  nature  be  action  we  cannot  think  of  it  as  secluded 
from  that  one  region  where  action  has  real  meaning  and 
effect  for  man.  It  must  assert,  express,  reveal  and  effect 
itself  in  history  for  the  holy  and  mastering  power  it  is. 

Yet  such  a  power  cannot  adequately  reveal  itself  dis- 
persed through  history,  or  merely  parallel  with  it,  nor  even 
in  "mutual  involution."  For  such  a  diffused  revelation 
would  not  represent,  and  might  even  belie,  a  spiritual 
power  whose  nature  was  not  only  action  but  action  of 
the  sole  kind  which  possesses  moral  unity,  namely,  the 
action  of  a  moral  person.  If  it  reveal  itself — I  do  not 
merely  mean  assert  itself — in  history  it  must  surely  do 
so  in  an  act  corresponding  to  its  own  total  ethical  nature  in 
the  spiritual  world,  in  an  act  which  gathers  and  com- 
mands cosmic  history,  as  its  nature  is  to  focus  and  utter 
all  spiritual  being.  A  world  of  spiritual  action  with  moral 
coherency  can  only  be  revealed  in  history  by  a  supreme 


33^ 


The  Preacher 


spiritual  act,  the  supreme  act  of  a  person  who  both  gathers 
up  and  controls  human  existence,  and  delivers  it  from  that 
submersion  in  self  and  the  world  which  in  the  long  run  is 
fatal  to  man's  action  as  man.  If  spiritual  existence  be  an 
infinite  and  eternal  act,  such  must  also  be  its  revelation. 

And  this  is  the  act  of  Christ  in  the  Cross,  the  act  of 
the  Gospel.  It  is  the  act  of  God's  grace,  met  by  the  act  of 
our  faith — an  act  into  which  a  whole  divine  life  was  put,  and 
one  that  issues  in  a  whole  life  on  our  part.  This  act  is  the 
gift  of  God  ;  whose  freedom  we  attain  by  no  mere  develop- 
ment of  our  own  liberty,  but  by  a  free  act  which  renoun- 
ces our  liberty  for  His,  breaks  with  what  is  behind  and 
beneath  us,  breaks  with  the  old  self,  and,  by  accepting  a 
new  creation,  exchanges  an  assertive  individualism  for 
a  redeemed  personality.  The  energy  of  such  a  spiritual 
world  as  we  postulate  in  God  can  only  act  on  us  in  the 
way  of  redemption  and  not  more  evolution  from  the 
world  of  our  first  stage.  We  cease  to  be  self-made 
men,  and  we  are  men  who  let  God  make  us,  and  make  us 
by  His  grace  and  not  His  evolution.  We  achieve  by  this 
grace  a  personality  we  had  not  at  the  first.  As  we  reach 
our  freedom  we  acquire  and  attain  ourselves  ;  and  we  reach 
our  freedom  by  surrendering  it  to  God's.  The  best  use  we 
can  make  of  our  freedom  is  to  forgo  it,  and  to  sign  it  away 
to  one  whose  work  and  joy  it  is  to  create  in  us  a  freedom  we 
can  never  acquire.  We  are  but  persons  in  the  making,  and 
we  are  not  made  till  grace  make  us  and  faith  is  made. 
Our  supreme  ethical  act  is  the  faith  that  gives  us  at  once 
our  Saviour  and  ourselves.  We  exhaust  our  own  exertions, 
and  we  deliver  ourselves  to  a  faithful  Creator.  And  our 
perfecting  God  is  a  God  of  grace,  not  only  because  He 
finishes  us,  but  finishes  us  as  alone  we  can  be  perfected — 
by  redemption,  by  a  change  of  base,  centre,  and  affection. 
He  is  a  gracious  God  and  not  simply  a  benevolent  God, 
because  He  lets  us  exhaust,  and  even  wreck,  our  private 
powers,  instead  of  only  guiding  their  education,  so  that  with 
His  free  and  creative  act  He  may  make  of  us  what  all  out 
native  force  could  never  do. 


THE  MORAL  POIGNANCY  OF  THE 
CROSS 


22 


IX 
The  Moral  Poignancy  of  the  Cross 

The  leading  doctrine  of  much  modem  theology  is 
the  Fatherhood  of  God  in  a  sense  I  have  already 
indicated.  It  offers  us  a  God  genial,  benignant, 
patient,  and  too  great  in  His  love  to  make  so  much 
as  Paulinism  does  of  the  sin  of  a  mere  child  like 
man.  Now,  how  does  such  a  conception  really 
affect  modern  preaching  ?  It  is  another  form  of 
the  question  if  we  ask  how  it  affects  the  Church 
whose  voice  preaching  is.  No  such  vast  doctrine 
can  be  tested  by  either  the  feeling  or  the  character 
of  an  individual,  even  if  he  be  a  most  successful 
preacher.  There  are  plenty  of  individuals,  and 
indeed  one  whole  sex,  to  whom  a  religion  of  naive 
fatherly  love  is  perfectly  satisfactory — so  much 
so  that  they  can  not  only  think  of  nothing  beyond, 
but  they  grow  impatient  when  anything  more 
is  pressed,  as  if  it  were  a  sophistication,  an  imperti- 
nence, or  a  foray  of  dogma.  But  the  real  question  is 
not  about  individuals,  but  it  is  this — Is  that  the  faith 
once  committed  to  the  Church  ?  Is  it  the  faith 
that  has  formed  the  real  continuum  of  the  Church, 
its  distinctive  note  and  staying  power  in  history  ? 

339 


340       The  Moral  Poignancy 

And  what  would  the  moral  and  religious  result  be 
if  the  whole  Church  accepted  that  position,  and 
lived  on  that  level  and  climate  of  faith  ?  What 
would  be  the  result  then  to  the  preacher's  message, 
and  to  his  ultimate  moral  effect  on  life  or  society  ? 

It  is  easy,  of  course,  to  say  that  above  all  things 
we  need  a  simple  religion,  and  that  this  gospel  of 
fatherly  love  is  of  the  simplest ;  that  it  speaks  the 
language  of  the  heart,  and  the  piety  of  our  mothers' 
knee  ;  and  that  it  is  the  order  of  faith  that  befits 
an  age  of  democracy,  when  Christianity  is  straining 
every  nerve  to  get  at  the  untaught  mass. 

§ 

Now,  on  this  there  are  several  remarks.  First, 
Is  the  test  of  a  Gospel  the  welcome  it  receives,  the 
rapidity  of  its  success  ?  Is  the  distinctive  note 
of  the  Church's  Gospel  that  which  immediately 
appeals  to  the  democracy  or  the  minor  ?  Is  Christ- 
ianity to  stand  or  fall  by  its  direct  effect  on  the 
workman  or  the  youth  ?  Is  it  great,  universal, 
and  final  as  a  reUgion  because  it  is  within  the  effort- 
less comprehension  of  the  ignorant  or  the  weak  ?  It 
shall,  indeed,  be  for  these.  The  wayfaring  man, 
though  a  fool,  need  not  err  therein.  But  is  he  the 
criterion  of  the  religion  ?  Is  everything  to  be 
sacrificed  from  Bible,  Church,  or  Creed  which  does 
not  attract  or  hold  the  masses  of  the  natural 
man  ?  Is  it  the  case  that  what  we  now  find  most 
valuable  in  Christianity  has  arrested  and  commanded 
the  prompt  welcome  of  men  in  its  course  through 


of  the  Cross  341 

history  ?     These  are  questions  which  it  is  not  super- 
fluous to  discuss  in  the  connexion. 

§ 

Second,  the  situation  of  the  soul  is  not  a  simple 
one.  The  moral  difficulty  of  society  is  not  that  we  are 
strayed  children,  great  babes  in  a  wood.  It  is  that  we 
are  sinful  men  in  a  sinful  race.  We  are  mutinous.  It 
is  not  a  pathetic  situation  that  the  preacher  con- 
fronts so  much  as  a  tragic.  The  first  question  for 
a  Redeemer  is  stiU  the  old  one,  quanti  ponderis  sit 
peccatum.  The  forgiveness  of  sin  is  the  foundation 
and  genesis  of  Christianity  ;  it  is  not  an  incident  in  it, 
nor  in  the  Christian  life.  Not  to  know  sin  is  not  to 
know  Christ.  That  is  true  for  the  race  if  not  for 
every  soul  in  it.  No  one  can  describe  the  situation 
as  simple  who  has  earned  the  right  to  an  opinion  by 
gauging  that  fundamental  question,  or  by  knowledge 
of  the  moral  world  round  him.  Let  us  not  go  to 
war  without  counting  the  cost.  A  remedy  for  such 
a  situation  which  is  merely  simple  is  a  pill  for  an 
earthquake,  or  a  poultice  for  a  cancer.  The  disease 
is  mortal.  And,  moreover,  what  is  in  question  is  a 
diseased  world.  It  is  a  society  that  is  sick  to  death, 
and  not  a  stray  soul.  We  have  to  deal  with  a  radical 
evil  in  human  nature,  and  spiritual  wickedness 
in  deep  places.  We  have  not  only  to  restore  the 
prodigal  but  to  reorganize  the  household  of  the  elder 
brother.  In  life's  daily  affairs  it  may  be  wisdom 
not  to  take  things  tragically.  But  they  have  to  be 
taken  tragically  somewhere  if  we  are  to  have  moral 


342       The  Moral  Poignancy 

realism  at  all.  And  the  men  of  power  and  thorough- 
ness do  so  take  it,  whether  Kant  or  Ibsen.  The 
world  as  a  world  has  to  be  tragically  taken,  and 
converted  to  a  divina  commedia.  If  it  is  our  wisdom 
not  to  be  tragic  it  is  only  the  wisdom  of  faith,  which 
does  not  ignore  the  tragedy,  but  is  able  to  cast  it 
on  One  who  did  take  things  tragically,  and  who 
underwent  and  overcame  at  the  moral  centre  of  men 
and  things. 


And,  thirdly,  we  may  ask  how  far  this  view  does 
justice  to  the  revelation  which  is  the  Kripv^y.a  of 
the  Church,  and  the  preacher's  capital  in  the  Bible. 
The  Church  has  not  only  to  read  the  present  situa- 
tion ;  she  has  to  read  her  own  Gospel  before  that ; 
which  is  what  multitudes  of  people,  and  even 
preachers,  are  not  doing.  How  far  does  this  view 
do  justice  to  the  revelation  "  God  is  love,"  in  the 
face  of  such  a  world  of  muddle,  misery  and  anomaly, 
of  guilt,  grief,  and  devilry.  The  preacher's  business 
is  to  make  that  principle  of  love  real  and  effective 
in  a  world  of  extreme  wickedness,  a  world  with 
Goneril  in  it,  and  Regan,  and  I  ago,  and  Mephis- 
topheles,  with  the  Inquisition  in  it,  and  the  Russian 
bureaucracy.  It  is  not  Hamlet  that  is  the  real 
trouble,  though  he  most  arrests  the  attention  of  to- 
day. And  the  preacher's  first  inquiry  is,  How  is 
that  revelation  '  God  is  love  '  made  effective  by  God  ? 
How  does  God  Himself  face  the  world's  worst  in 
the  Gospel  which  is  put  into  the  preacher's  hands  ? 


of  the  Cross  343 


It  is  not  the  unwieldy  mass  of  a  gross  average  world 
that  makes  the  problem  of  the  Cross,  but  the  world's 
wickedness,  condensed,  organized  pointed,  deliberate, 
and  Satanic,  not  missing  or  losing  God  but  challeng- 
ing Him,  It  is  not  a  misunderstanding  but  war  a  la 
outrance.  It  is  sin's  death  or  God's.  For  we  must 
keep  urging  that  what  is  given  the  preacher  is  not 
a  truth  but  a  Gospel ;  nor  is  it  an  offer  of  God  at 
the  mercy  of  human  experience,  but  an  objective 
finished  deed.  What  is  this  deed  ?  How  does  God 
reveal  Himself  as  love  ?  I  should  like  to  devote  this 
lecture  to  an  answer  to  that  question  more  explicit 
than  my  previous  references,  because  all  these 
references  have  been  accumulating  such  a  necessity 
for  me ;  and  because  it  is  the  question  which  goes  to 
the  root  of  the  preacher's  power  ;  meaning  thereby 
chiefly  the  Church's  message  as  the  preacher  to  the 
world.  For  it  is  easy  (I  said)  to  be  misled  by  the 
effect  of  idiosyncrasy  in  individual  preachers,  or  by 
their  effect  on  individual  cases.  An  invalid  might 
be  greatly  consoled  by  a  kindly  preacher  whose  net 
pubhc  effect  was  to  undermine  the  Christian  Gospel. 

§ 
We  are  aU  agreed  that  the  Gospel  is  the  revelation 
of  God's  love  to  the  sinful  world.  My  points  are, 
first,  that  no  revelation  of  divine  love  to  such  a 
world  is  possible  unless  the  revelation  is  an  act  of 
redemption.  Men  had  to  be  delivered  into  the  very 
power  to  see  a  revelation  ;  so  that  mere  manifestation 
is  but  one  factor  in  revelation.     And  my  second  point 


344       'The  Moral  Poignancy- 
is  that  the  redemption  of  man  is  inseparable  from 
the  satisfaction  of  God  in  an  Atonement. 

§ 

I,  On  the  first  head,  I  would  begin  by  recalling 

the  educational  principle,  that  as  no  lesson  is  really 

taught    till  it    is    learned,   so    revelation    is    not 

revelation  tiU  it  get  home,  till  it  return  to  God  in 

faith.     And  we  have  to  be  saved  into  faith  before 

we  are  saved  by  it.     The  power  of  sin  is  such  that 

we  cannot  believe  to  saving  purpose  except  we  are 

redeemed  into  that  power.     We  cannot  beUeve  even 

when  we  wish  to.     The  voice  of  our  distress  is, 

"  Hilf,  Vaier  mein, 
Dem  Knechte  dein, 
Ich  glaub'  und  kann  nicht  glauben.'* 

Faith  itself,  we  say,  is  the  work  of  the  Spirit. 
And  the  Spirit  itself  proceeds  from  the  Cross,  and 
is  the  Spirit  of  our  redemption.  And  just  as  a 
great  and  original  artist  like  Turner,  or  a  similar 
poet  like  Browning,  had  first  to  create  the  very 
taste  that  understands  them,  so  it  is  with  the  tre- 
mendous and  creative  revelation  of  God  in  Christ. 
It  had  to  recreate  man,  and  redeem  him  into  the 
very  power  of  realizing  it.  The  difficulty  in  believ- 
ing in  an  Atonement  is  in  great  measure  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  belief  needs  self-surrender.  The 
real  necessity  of  an  Atonement  only  comes  home 
where  it  has  done  its  work — only  to  the  conscience 
redeemed.  You  cannot  prove  it  to  the  world,  or 
force  it  on  the  natural  man.      If  a  man  say  '  I  do 


of  the  Cross  345 

not  see  the  need  of  it '  you  can  go  little  farther  with 
him,  beyond  a  caution  that  he  shall  not  make  his 
myopia  the  standard  of  vision. 

We  may,  and  we  must,  modernize  our  theories  of 
Atonement,  but  for  preaching,  in  such  a  world  as 
this,  the  Church  must  have  the  thing,  the  deed. 
It  cannot  act  effectively  in  a  world  where  evil  is 
so  able,  so  practical,  so  passionate,  so  sordid,  and 
so  established,  with  a  mere  exhibition  of  father- 
hood ;  nor  can  it  treat  the  history  of  sonship  as 
man's  natural  evolution  under  Christ's  benignant 
sunshine  up  to  a  spiritual  plane. 

How  then  are  we  to  do  justice  to  God's  holy  love  ? 
Well,  how  did  He  ?  He  might  conceivably  have 
done  it  through  a  sage  that  taught  this  love.  But 
that  is  too  futile,  and  He  did  not  act  so.  He  might 
have  done  it  through  a  prophet,  inspired  by  his  own 
experience  of  such  righteous  love,  and  aglow  with 
its  passion.  But  prophetism,  with  all  its  moral 
fervour,  was  a  failure  for  the  saving  either  of  Israel 
or  the  world.  Yea,  as  a  prophet  only,  Jesus  Him- 
self was  a  failure  both  with  the  people  and  His  dis- 
ciples. Or  He  might  have  done  it  by  a  sinless  but 
statuesque  personaUty,  who  embodied  His  love, 
and  visualized  it  to  us  as  its  living  image  and  our 
perfect  example  or  type.  But  even  that  is  more  of 
a  spectacle  than  a  salvation  ;  it  is  something  more 
aesthetic  for  our  spiritual  contemplation  than  dyna- 
mic for  our  moral  redemption.  So  to  view  Christ  is  no 
doubt  a  great  matter.  But  it  is  the  nature  of  a  tableau 
vivant.     It  leaves  Him  still  a  somewhat  inert  per- 


34^       The  Moral  Poignancy 

sonality,  a  spiritual  figure  finished  all  but  the  arms. 
He  cannot  take  hold  of  the  world  and  wrestle  with 
it.  He  is  not  among  the  mighty  doers  of  the  race. 
He  remains  but  a  gracious  influence.  We  meet  in 
Him  with  that  nearness  of  the  divine  presence 
which  marks  an  early  stage  of  rehgion,  but  not 
with  His  searching  divine  act  which  makes  God  the 
last  moral  reahty.  The  last  moral  reality  is  a  person 
not  in  repose  but  in  action  with  the  world.  The 
real  God  is  present  in  the  soul,  active  in  history, 
and  master  of  the  world.  Now  the  pure  and  sinless 
personality  of  Christ  leaves  us  indeed  with  a  divine 
presence  in  whom  our  selfhood  may  be  lost,  but 
not  with  the  divine  act  of  new  creation  in  which 
we  are  given  our  true  moral  place  in  a  saved  world. 
It  leaves  us  with  a  religion  of  worship  but  not  with 
a  religion  of  power,  with  a  message  which  exhibits 
rather  than  achieves,  and  says  rather  than  does. 

And,  therefore,  God's  way  of  carrying  home  His  love 
to  the  world  was  by  a  person  who  was  realized  in  one 
act  corresponding  to  the  unity  of  the  person  and  the 
scale  of  the  world  ;  a  person  whose  consummation  of 
Himself  was  in  the  great  man's  way  of  crucial  action ;  an 
action  giving  effect  to  His  whole  universal  personality 
and  therefore  having  effect  on  the  whole  of  man's  rela- 
tion to  God.  God  in  Christ's  Cross  not  only  manifests 
His  love  but  gives  effect  to  it  in  human  history.  He 
enters  that  stream,  and  rides  on  its  rage,  and  rules  its 
flood,  and  bends  its  course.  He  reseats  His  love  in  com- 
mand upon  the  active  centre  of  human  reality.  He  does 
the  thing  which  is  crucial  for  human  destiny.     Christ 


of  the  Cross  347 

effected  God's  purpose  with  the  race,  He  did  not 
merely  contribute  the  chief  condition  to  that  end. 
The  Cross  effects  the  reconcihation  of  man  and 
God  ;  it  does  not  simply  announce  it,  or  simply 
prepare  it.  It  does  not  simply  provide  either  a 
preliminary  which  God  needs  in  a  propitiation,  or 
the  stimulus  man  needs  in  a  spiritual  hero,  or  a 
moving  martyr.  The  propitiation  is  the  redemption. 
The  only  satisfaction  to  a  holy  God  is  the  absolute 
establishment  of  holiness,  as  Christ  did  it  in  all  but 
the  empirical  way.  The  Cross  is  the  redemption  in 
principle  and  effect.  It  does  not  avert  the  great 
last  judgment,  it  is  the  action  of  that  judgment. 
Do  not  persist  in  thinking  of  the  last  judgment  as 
mainly  dreadful  and  damnatory.  In  the  Bible  and 
especially  in  the  Old  Testament,  I  have  already 
said,  the  day  of  the  Lord  is  an  awful  joy,  as  the 
final  vindication  of  goodness,  the  final  establish- 
ment of  righteousness.  Judgment  is  the  grand 
justification,  not  prepared  by  the  Cross,  but 
effected  and  completed  on  the  Cross  and  the  justi- 
fication there.  The  justified  have  the  last  judgment 
behind  them.  There  the  eschatological  becomes 
ethical,  the  remote  near,  the  last  first.  The  jus- 
tification in  the  Cross  does  not  produce  the 
salvation ;  it  is  the  salvation.  In  Christ  we 
have  no  mere  preface  or  auxiliary  to  the 
supreme  crisis  of  humanity.  We  have  that  crisis. 
The  day  of  the  Lord  is  here.  We  are  in  its  midst. 
Only  as  the  race  is  hving  out  Christ's  death,  for 
weal  or  woe,  can  we   truly  say  Die   W eltgeschichte 


34^        The  Moral  Poignancy 

ist  das  Weltgericht.  The  work  was  finished  there  as 
well  as  begun.  But  it  was  finished  more  than  begun. 
It  began  its  career  as  a  finished  work.  But  to  this 
point  I  must  return  later. 


Christ  does  not  come  to  us  merely  announcing 
His  view  of  God.  Nor  does  He  come  afire  with  the 
ardour  of  holiness.  Nor  does  He  come  to  present 
to  the  world  a  perfect  but  lapidary  sanctity.  What 
He  carries  home  to  us  is  not  the  existence  of  God 
but  the  grace  of  God.  He  comes  to  be  the  standing, 
saving  action  of  a  holy  God  in  and  on  the  world. 
He  is  in  it  as  one  who  is  in  perpetual  conquest  over 
it.  He  is  in  it  sacramentally,  not  as  immanent 
but  as  incarnate,  not  as  its  substance  but  as  its 
purpose,  not  as  filling  it  but  as  effectuating  it,  not 
pervading  it  but  subduing  and  reclaiming  it,  not 
as  its  ground  but  as  its  King. 

In  Christ  God  does  not  simply  announce  Himself, 
and  He  cannot  be  preached  by  a  mere  announcement. 
He  gives  no  mere  revelation  about  Himself.  The 
revelation  about  God  is  the  bane  common  both  to 
orthodoxy  and  to  rationalism.  Both  are  the  victims 
of  that  intellectuahsm.  What  we  need,  what 
God  has  given,  what  preaching  has  to  convey, 
is  Himself.  It  is  Sacramental  work.  His  revel- 
ation is  His  actual  coming  and  doing.  He  is  there 
in  Christ,  not  through  Christ.  Revelation  is  self- 
communication  ;  and  it  is  self-communication  which 
is  not  the  mere   offer  of  Himself  but   the  actual 


of  the  Cross  349 


bestowal  of  Himself,  His  effectual  occupation  of 
Man-soul  and  not  His  mere  claim  of  it,  not  the  soul's 
opportunity  but  the  soul's  seizure  by  an  act  of  con- 
quest. God  is  the  matter  of  His  own  revelation  ; 
and,  therefore.  He  only  succeeds  if  he  win,  not  the 
soul's  assent,  but  the  soul  itself.  If  it  was  Himself 
He  gave,  it  is  man's  self  He  must  have.  And  He 
is  not  reaUy  revealed  to  man,  for  all  His  outgoing, 
till  He  receive  that  answer,  till  He  redeem,  and  re- 
turn upon  Himself  with  man's  soul  for  a  prey.  Re- 
velation must  take  effect  in  restored  communion.  God 
is  not  really  opened  to  me  till  He  opens  me  to  Him. 
All  this  is  only  possible  if  revelation  and  preaching 
be  much  more  than  declaration.  Revelation  must  be 
an  act.  Reality  is  action.  Im  Anfang  war  die  That. 
Christ  spoke  far  less  of  love  than  he  practised  it.  He 
did  not  pubhsh  a  new  idea  of  the  Father — rather  He 
was  the  first  true  Son.  Christ  as  God's  revelation  is 
God's  act ;  and  our  conveyance  of  Christ  in  preaching 
is  Christ's  act.  Otherwise,  God's  love  would  be  a  mere 
lenient  word,  or  a  mere  affection  on  His  part,  lacking 
in  moral  energy  and  in  power  to  give  effect  to  itself. 
God  then  would  not  fully  identify  Himself  with  the 
human  case.  He  feels  for  men,  and  speaks  to  them 
but  He  does  nothing.  He  sends,  but  He  does  not 
come.  This  sending,  no  doubt,  is  a  great  thing,  but 
it  is  not  a  Gospel  that  inspires  preaching  in  the  high 
and  powerful  sense,  in  a  sense  commensurate 
either  with  tragic  humanity  or  a  triumphant  Church. 
And  the  philanthropy  based  on  this,  prohfic  as  it 
may  be  for  a  time,  has  not  a  future,  for  lack  of  staying 


\ 


350       The  Moral  Poignancy 

power.  The  divinest  love  which  could  not  put  its 
whole  self  into  a  saving  act  might  but  wring  its 
hands  on  the  shore,  or  wade  a  little  in,  as  many 
do,  who  mean  the  very  best,  but  who  can  only 
tickle  the  evil  of  a  world  with  which  they  cannot 
grapple.  When  we  preachers  ask  about  the  revela- 
tion of  God's  love  what  we  ask  for  is  its  deed. 

Remember  above  all  things  that  the  love  we  have 
to  do  with  is  holy  love.  And  hohness  is  the  eternal 
moral  power  which  must  do,  and  do,  till  it  see  itself 
everywhere.  That  is  its  only  satisfaction  and  atone- 
ment, not  the  pound  of  flesh  but  entire  absolute 
response  in  its  own  active  kind.  And  that  is  what 
we  have  in  Christ  as  our  head. 

§ 

The  modernizing  of  theology  (I  have  urged) 
means  above  all  things  its  ethicizing.  And  its 
ethicizing  can  only  mean  its  control  at  all  points  by 
the  supreme  ethical  power.  But  that  must  mean 
not  its  reformation  from  without  but  its  self  reforma- 
tion from  within.  For  the  supreme  ethical  idea  is 
one  which  the  Gospel  itself  provides,  which  the 
Gospel  alone  provides,  and,  still  more,  puts  in  action 
and  makes  effective.  It  is  not  an  idea  imported 
from  culture  as  a  corrective  to  faith.  It  is  given  in 
faith  as  the  idea  and  the  power  which  necessitated 
the  Cross  of  Christ  and  made  it  mighty,  the  idea  and 
power  of  God's  holiness,  its  word  and  deed. 

And  what  does  that  holiness  mean  and  demand  if 
we  become  more  explicit  ? 


of  the  Cross  351 


Turn  to  man  himself.  Begin  with  him  as  a 
moral  personality,  Man  finds  the  moral  order  of 
the  world  uttered  for  him  in  his  conscience.  In 
that  conscience  he  even  finds  the  voice  of  God.  He 
carries  back  the  moral  order,  whether  in  himself  or 
without,  to  God.     God  as  holy  is  its  absolute  ground. 

For  that  conscience  is  not  a  voice  from  a  corner  of 
man's  being.  It  is  the  verdict  of  his  whole  moral 
self.  It  is  himself,  as  a  complete  moral  personality, 
pronouncing  on  himself  as  something  else,  either 
short  of  that,  or  hostile  to  it.  It  is  the  expression 
of  his  own  moral  autonomy.  In  so  far  as  it  is  a  law 
to  him  it  is  the  law  of  his  full  free  moral  self. 

But  it  has  power  over  him  not  only  as  being  his,  but 
as  taking  the  same  supreme  place  for  every  moral 
being.  It  has  this  supreme  place  therefore  for 
humanity.  The  sanctity  of  man  is  the  sanctity  of 
man's  full,  free,  and  collective  moral  self. 

But  that  very  complete  fulness  must  go  back  on 
a  divine  ground  of  it  all,  the  ground  of  our  very 
autonomy.  We  are  again  confronted  with  the 
paradox  of  dependence  and  freedom  "  He  hath 
given  the  Son  to  have  life  in  Himself."  "  Work, 
for  it  is  God  working."  We  go  back  to  secure 
our  autonomy  on  an  autonomy  which  has  its 
ground  in  itself,  that  is  to  say,  to  God.  Without  this 
divine  autonomy,  underlying  and  guaranteeing  all 
ours,  we  have  no  principle  that  gives  the  moral  law 
a  supreme  sanction,  and  raises  it  above  all  our  wilful 
doubt  or  passion. 

Now   this  principle  is  the   holiness  of  God.     Or 


352        The  Moral  Poignancy 

rather  it  is  God  the  holy.  It  is  God  as  self-com- 
plete and  absolute  moral  personality,  the  universal 
and  eternal  holy  God  whose  sufficiency  is  of  Him- 
self, the  self-contained,  and  self-determined  moral 
reality  of  the  universe,  for  which  all  things  work 
together  in  a  supreme  concursus,  which  must  endure 
if  all  else  fail,  and  must  be  secured  at  any  cost  beside. 
Better  it  were  that  man  should  wreck  than  that 
God's  holiness  be  defiled  and  defied.  "  The  dignity  of 
man  himself  is  better  secured  if  it  break  in  the 
maintenance  of  God's  holiness  than  if  that  holiness 
suffer  defeat  for  man's  mere  existence."  It  is  a 
holiness  whose  claim  must  be  not  only  made, 
but  made  good,  and  given  unmistakable  effect.  (I 
beg  you  to  bear  with  my  phraseology  often.  For  we 
are  here  almost  beyond  the  limits  of  human  speech 
and  caught  up  to  the  verge  of  realities  which  it  is 
not  given  to  man  to  utter.) 

It  is  not  enough,  therefore,  to  emphasize  the  person 
of  Christ,  to  set  it  again  in  the  centre  as  modern 
theology  was  bound  to  do,  and  has  done  ever  since 
Schleiermacher,  in  order  to  repair  much  historic 
neglect.  We  may  dwell  on  the  person  of  Christ  and 
mean  no  more  than  a  perfectly  saintly  soul  repos- 
ing in  God.  But  this  is  a  conception  too  sabbatic 
for  a  universe  which  is  an  act,  and  whose  energy 
runs  up  into  human  history.  Christ's  person  has 
its  reality  in  its  active  relation  to  other  persons — 
God  or  men.  We  must  find  the  key  to  it  in  some- 
thing Christ  did  with  His  entirety,  and  did  in 
relation  to  that  holiness  of  God  which  means  so 
much  more  than  all  Humanity  is  worth. 


of  the  Cross  353 

The  true  key  to  Christ's  person  is  in  His  work. 
It  lies  not  in  a  miraculous  manner  of  birth,  nor  in 
a  metaphysical  manner  of  two  co-existent  natures, 
but  in  a  moral  way  of  atoning  experience.  It 
lies  in  His  personal  action,  and  in  our  experience  of 
saving  benefits  from  Him.  It  lies  not  in  His  con- 
stitution but  in  His  blessings.  His  love  to  us  is  not 
the  image,  the  reflexion,  or  even  the  result  of  God's 
love,  it  is  a  part  of  it,  the  very  present  action  of  it. 
We  feel  this  particularly  when  we  are  forgiven.  It  is 
only  the  holy  love  we  have  so  wronged  that  has  the 
right  to  forgive.  And  the  forgiveness  we  take  from 
Christ  is  taken  directly  from  the  hand  and  heart  of 
God,  immediately  though  not  unmediated.  Christ 
is  God  forgiving.  He  does  not  help  us  to  God,  He 
brings  God.  In  Him  God  comes.  He  is  not  the 
agent  of  God  but  the  Son  of  God  ;  He  is  God  the 
Son.  As  we  must  preach  Christ  and  not  merely 
about  Christ,  so  Christ  does  not  merely  bring  access 
to  God,  He  brings  God.  God  is  Love  only  if  Jesus  is 
God.  Otherwise  Jesus  would  become  our  real  God. 
God's  love  then  is  love  in  holy  action,  in  forgive- 
ness, in  redemption.  It  is  the  love  for  sinners  of 
a  God  above  all  things  holy,  whose  hoUness  makes 
sin  damnable  as  sin  and  love  active  as  grace. 
It  can  only  act  in  a  way  that  shall  do  justice  to 
holiness,  and  restore  it.  Short  of  that,  love  does 
no  more  than  pass  a  lenient  sentence  on  sin.  It 
meets  the  strain  of  the  situation  by  reducing  the 
severity  of  the  demand.  It  empties  of  meaning  the 
wrath  of  God.     And  it  reduces  the  holy  law  of  His 

2Z 


3  54       The  Moral  Poignancy 

nature  to  a  bye-law  He  can  suspend,  or  a  habit  He 
can  break. 

§ 
Any  conception  of  God  which  exalts  His  Father- 
hood at  the  cost  of  His  holiness,  or  to  its  neglect, 
unsettles  the  moral  throne  of  the  universe.  Any 
reaction  of  ours  from  a  too  exacting  God  which 
leaves  us  with  but  a  kindly  God,  a  patient  and  a 
pitiful,  is  a  reaction  which  sends  us  over  the  edge 
of  the  moral  world.  And  it  robs  us  of  moral  energy. 
The  fatherly  God  of  recent  religious  liberalism  is 
indeed  a  conception  for  which  we  have  to  bless 
Him  when  we  look  back  on  much  that  went  before. 
But  the  gain  brings  loss.  It  is  a  conception  which  by 
itself  tends  to  do  less  than  justice  even  to  God's  love. 
It  tends  to  take  the  authority  out  of  the  Gospel,  the 
sinew  out  of  preaching,  the  insight  out  of  faith,  the 
stamina  out  of  character,  and  discipline  out  of  the 
home.  Such  a  view  of  God  is  not  in  sufficient  moral 
earnest — though  nothing  could  exceed  the  moral 
eagerness  of  many  who  hold  it.  It  does  not 
descend  into  hell  nor  ascend  into  heaven.  It  does  not 
pierce  and  destroy  our  self-satisfaction.  It  has 
not  spiritual  depth,  real  and  sincere  as  the  piety  is 
of  many  of  its  advocates.  It  has  not  what  I  have 
already  called  adequate  moral  mordancy.  The 
question  at  last  is  not  of  its  particular  advocates 
but  of  the  result  that  would  follow  if  this  become 
the  view  of  the  whole  church.  "  As  is  Thy  majesty 
so  is   Thy   mercy,"   says   the  sage.     But   what    I 


of  the  Cross  355 

describe  is  a  view  of  mercy  which  does  justice 
neither  to  the  majesty  of  God,  nor  to  the  great- 
ness of  man.  It  has  certainly  no  due  sense  of 
the  human  tragedy,  the  moral  tragedy  of  the 
race.  And,  accordingly,  it  takes  from  preaching 
the  element  so  conspicuous  by  its  absence  to-day, 
the  element  of  imaginative  greatness  and  moral 
poignancy.  It  lacks  the  note  of  doom  and 
the  searching  realism  of  the  greatest  moral  seers. 
It  is  no  more  true  to  Shakespeare  than  to  the  Bible, 
to  Dante  than  to  Paul.  It  robs  faith  of  its  energy, 
its  virility,  its  command,  its  compass,  and  its 
solemnity.  The  temperature  of  rehgion  falls.  The 
horizon  of  the  soul  contracts.  Piety  becomes 
prosaic,  action  conventional,  goodness  domestic,  and 
mercy  but  kind.  We  have  churches  of  the  nicest, 
kindest  people,  who  have  nothing  apostolic  or 
missionary,  who  never  knew  the  soul's  despair  or  its 
breathless  gratitude.  God  becomes  either  a  specta- 
cular and  inert  God,  or  a  God  who  acts  amiably  ; 
with  the  strictness  of  affection  at  best,  and  not  the 
judgment  of  sanctity ;  without  the  consuming  fire, 
and  the  great  white  throne.  He  is  not  dramatic  in 
the  great  sense  of  the  word.  He  is  not  adequate 
to  history.  He  is  not  on  the  scale  of  the  race.  He 
is  the  centre  of  a  religious  scene  instead  of  the 
protagonist  in  the  moral  drama  of  Man  and  Time. 
The  whole  relation  between  God  and  man  is  re- 
duced to  attitude  and  not  action — to  a  pose,  at 
last.  It  is  more  sympathetic  than  searching.  The 
Cross    becomes  a   parergon.      We  tend  then  to  a 


3  5^       The  Moral  Poignancy 

Christianity  without  force,  passion,  or  effect ;  a 
suburban  piety,  homely  and  kindly  but  unfit  to  cope 
with  the  actual  moral  case  of  the  world,  its  giant 
souls  and  hearty  sinners.  We  cannot  deal  to  any 
purpose  with  the  great  sins  or  the  great  fearless 
transgressors,  the  exceeding  sinfulness  and  deep 
damnation  of  the  race.  Our  word  is  as  a  very  lovely 
song  of  one  that  has  a  pleasant  voice  and  can  play 
well  on  an  instrument.  And  the  people  hear,  but 
do  not.  They  hear,  but  do  not  fear.  They 
are  enchanted,  but  unchanged.  Moral  taste  takes 
the  place  of  moral  insight.  Religious  sensibility 
stands  where  evangelical  faith  should  be.  Education 
takes  the  place  of  conversion,  a  happy  nature  of  the 
new  nature.  Love  takes  the  place  of  faith,  uneasiness 
of  concern,  regret  of  repentance,  and  criticism  of 
judgment.  Sin  becomes  a  thing  of  short  weight.  It 
was  largely  our  ignorance  ;  and  when  we  thought  of 
God's  anger  we  were  misreading  Him  by  reading 
into  Him  our  choleric  selves.  Our  salvation  be- 
comes a  somewhat  common  thing,  and  glorious 
heavens  or  fiery  hells  die  into  the  light  of  drab  and 
drowsy  day.  Much  is  done  by  enlightened  views 
in  the  way  of  correcting  our  conception  of  God,  to 
fit  it  into  its  place  in  the  rest  of  knowledge,  and 
to  lift  it  to  a  higher  stage  in  the  long  religious 
evolution.  But  it  is  all  apologetic,  all  theosophic. 
It  aims  at  adjusting  the  grace  of  God  to  the  natural 
realm  rather  than  interpreting  it  by  our  moral  soul 
and  our  moral  coil.  It  is  not  theology  ;  it  is  not 
religion,   it  is  not  vital  godliness.      It  does  not  do 


of  the   Cross  357 

much  in  the  way  of  effectively  restoring  the  actual 
living  relation  between  God  and  the  soul.  I  am 
compelled  to  recognize  often  that  the  most  deeply 
and  practically  pious  people  in  the  Church  are  among 
those  whose  orthodox  theology  I  do  not  share. 
I  even  distrust  it  for  the  Church's  future.  But 
they  have  the  pearl  of  price. 


To  lay  the  stress  of  Christ's  revelation  elsewhere 
than  on  the  atoning  Cross  is  to  make  Him  no  more 
than  a  martyr,  whose  testimony  was  not  given  by 
His  death,  but  only  sealed  by  it.  His  message  must 
then  be  sought  in  His  words  ;  and  His  death  only 
certifies  the  strength  of  conviction  behind  them. 
Or  it  may  be  sought  in  the  spell  of  His  character  to 
which  His  death  but  gives  the  impressive  close. 

But  His  message  was  of  Himself,  even  through  His 
words  and  deeds.  "  Come  unto  Me,"  "  Confess  Me 
if  in  the  judgment  you  would  have  Me  confess  you." 
The  cup  of  cold  water  was  blessed  like  the  cup  of  the 
supper — for  His  sake.  I  need  not  add  to  these  passages. 
If,  then,  He  was  a  martyr.  He  was  a  martyr  to  Him- 
self. But  a  man  who  is  a  martyr  to  Himself  on  this 
scale  is  either  a  megalomaniac  egotist,  or  He  is  a 
redeeming  God.  But  Christ's  long  moral  majesty 
and  influence  with  man  forbid  the  former  alter- 
native, unless  the  whole  race  is  a  moral  lunatic  and 
history  a  freak.  He  was  God,  therefore,  and  His 
death  was  God  in  action.  He  was  not  simply  the 
witness  of  God's  grace.   He  was   its    fact,    its    in- 


358        The  Moral  Poignancy 

carnation.  His  death  was  not  merely  a  seal  to  His 
work  ;  it  was  His  consummate  work.  It  gathered 
up  His  whole  person.  It  was  more  than  a  confirm- 
atory pledge,  it  was  the  effective  sacrament  of  the 
gracious  God,  with  His  real  presence  at  its  core. 
Something  was  done  there  once  for  all,  and  the 
subject  doer  of  it  was  God.  The  real  acting  person 
in  the  Cross  was  God.  Christ's  death  was  not  the 
sealing  of  a  preacher's  testimony  ;  it  altered  from 
God's  part  the  whole  relation  between  God  and  man 
for  ever.  It  did  not  declare  something,  or  prove 
something,  it  achieved  something  decisive  for 
history,  nay  for  eternity. 

If  it  be  otherwise,  does  it  not  but  add  another  to 
our  moral  problems,  and  the  greatest  of  them  all  ? 
If  the  hohest  of  men  but  suffered  here  the  last 
calamity,  and  if  it  was  not  the  Holy  God  gaining  the 
last  victory,  then  we  have  but  another,  and  the 
greatest,  of  the  many  problems  that  haunt  us  about 
God's  justice  or  love  in  history.  The  imaginative 
greatness  of  the  problem  is  no  sufficient  answer  to 
it.  How  could  we  read  God's  love  in  the  sinless 
Christ  if  His  death  was  but  another  case  of  fate 
submerging  love.  Even  His  resurrection  would  be 
no  proof  of  love's  final  victory  had  that  victory  not 
been  essentially  won  in  His  death.  Resurrection  might 
then  be  no  more  than  a  personal  reward  for  extreme 
but  futile  fidelity.  It  would  not  seal  love's  final 
victory  for  the  race,  it  would  not  confirm  redemption 
on  the  world  scale.  The  Cross  would  simply  be  the 
last  and  worst  case  of  the  stoning  of  love's  prophets. 


of  the  Cross  359 

And  we  should  be  presented  with  the  alternatives, 
either  that  the  supreme  power  was  ignorant  of  it, 
or  indifferent  ;  or,  if  not  indifferent,  he  was  an  angry 
spectator  ;  and,  in  His  anger,  either  helpless,  or  ac- 
cumulating a  wrath  which  would  break,  one  day,  upon 
us  in  avenging  judgment  and  nothing  more.  This  is 
a  dilemma  which  we  escape  only  if  we  can  regard 
Christ,  not  as  the  witness,  nor  even  as  the  mere  aesthetic 
incarnation  of  God's  holy  love,  but  as  that  love  itself 
in  its  crucial  moral  act  of  eternal  judgment  and  grace. 

§ 

If  sin  be  man's  fatal  act  the  Cross  is  God's  vital 
act.  But  it  is  action  we  have  to  do  with.  It 
is  will  meeting  will,  yet  not  in  transaction  but 
interaction.  It  is  redemption  mastering  per- 
dition. What  slew  Christ  was  an  act  of  man, 
but  it  was  for  Him  much  more  than  an  in- 
fliction and  a  fate  of  which  He  was  the  passive 
martyr.  It  was  much  more  than  man's  act  and 
Christ's  fate.  It  was  an  act  on  His  side  much  more 
even  than  on  theirs ;  and  an  act,  not  of  resignation 
but  of  conquest  absolute  over  both  His  own  fate 
and  ours.  He  was  more  active  in  His  death  than 
was  the  world,  the  fate,  the  sin,  which  inflicted  it. 
Rather,  when  we  view  things  on  the  largest  scale, 
we  must  reverse  the  positions.  It  was  not  His 
fate  and  the  world's  act,  it  was  His  act  and  the 
world's  fate.  The  world's  condemnation  of  Him 
was  His  condemnation  of  the  world — but  a  condem- 
nation  unto    forgiveness    and    salvation.     In  the 


360       The  Moral  Poignancy 

Cross  the  world  was  doomed  to — salvation.  All 
were  shut  up  unto  sin,  that  there  might  be  mercy  on 
all.  The  world's  one  sin  was  made  by  grace  the 
world's  one  hope. 

It  was  the  world's  one  sin  ;  and  it  was  so  because 
it  was  committed  against  the  one  central  visitation 
of  man  by  God.  The  crucifying  of  Christ  was  the 
greatest  crime  of  history,  not  in  itself,  but  because 
it  was  inflicted  on  the  Holiest.  It  is  not  the  tra- 
vesty of  justice  that  is  so  imique,  it  is  not  the  crime 
against  humanity.  Against  humanity  alone  other 
crimes  may  have  been  as  great  or  greater — political, 
papal,  dynastic,  Napoleonic,  Russian  crimes.  But 
this  was  the  crime  against  the  unique  action  of  the 
Holy  God,  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost.  And 
therefore  to  Israel  as  a  national  unity  it  is  un- 
forgiven.  It  was  man's  sin  indeed,  but  it  was 
through  Israel.  And  for  the  salvation  of  the  whole 
the  offending  member  was  cut  off.  Israel  died  as 
the  body,  that  its  spirit,  as  Christ,  might  conquer 
mankind. 

As,  therefore,  the  one  sin  was  consummate  in  the 
act  of  man  the  one  salvation  can  be  nothing  less  than 
the  act  of  God.  The  death  of  Christ  completes  by 
action  God's  love  embodied  in  His  person.  It  is  the 
one  thing  that  gives  His  person  its  fuU  scope  and 
effect.  And  it  does  so  as  a  decisive  creative  act,  an 
act  of  God  and  not  merely  a  martyr  act.  It  copes 
with  man's  act,  it  does  not  but  endure  it  meekly. 
It  was  not  merely  the  evidence  of  a  divine  love, 
sensitive  yet  unpierced  at  the  centre  by  sin.    It  was 


of  the  Cross  361 

the  deed  of  a  love  stung  to  the  core,  stung  to  act  for 
its  life,  to  act  once  for  all  and  make  an  end 


II.  But  in  His  death  Christ  not  only  acted  and 
redeemed,  He  suffered  and  atoned.^  He  acted 
as  only  a  divine  sufferer  could.  His  act  of  sacrifice 
became  an  endurance  of  judgment.  Nothing  else 
than  atonement  could  do  full  justice  to  Love. 
Love  might  do  much,  but  if  it  did  not  suffer,  and 
suffer  not  only  pain  but  judgment,  it  could  not 
do  its  divine  utmost.  That  is  to  say,  it  might 
have  contact  with  us,  and  blessed  contact,  but  it 
would  be  short  of  identification  with  us.  It  could 
not  enter  into  our  self-condemnation.  But  surely 
love  divine  could  not  stop  short  of  such  an  identifi- 
cation with  our  suffering  as  made  Christ's  suffering 
judicial.  Must  a  divine  love  not  go  so  far  with  us 
and  for  us  as  to  enter  the  wrath  of  holiness  ?  Even 
that  was  not  beyond  Christ's  love.  He  was  made 
sin.  God  did  not  punish  Christ,  but  Christ  entered 
the  dark  shadow  of  God's  penalty  on  sin.  We 
must  press  the  results  of  God's  holy  love  in  com- 
pletely identifying  Himself  with  us.  Holiness  is 
not  holiness  tiU  it  go  out  in  love,  seek  the  sinner 
in  grace,  and  react  on  his  sin  by  judging  it.  But 
love  is  not  divine  identification  with  us  till  it  become 
sacrifice.     Nor  is  the  identification  with  us  complete 

^  I  do  not  say  much  in  these  lectures  about  the  reconciling 
efiect  of  His  work  upon  men.  That  may  not  be  understood 
as  it  should,  but  it  is  better  understood  to-day  than  the 
Other  aspects  of  his  work. 


362       The  Moral  Poignancy 

till  the  sacrifice  become  judgment,  till  our  Saviour 
share  our  self  condemnation,  our  fatal  judgment  of 
ourselves  in  God's  name.  The  priest,  in  his 
grace,  becomes  the  victim,  and  completes  his  con- 
fession of  God's  holiness  by  meeting  its  action 
as  judgment.     To  forgive  sin  he  must  bear  sin. 

As  He  took  the  suffering  He  took  and  bore  the 
sin  that  caused  it — the  sin  and  not  its  consequences 
only.  If  he  could  not  confess,  sin.  He  could  and 
did  confess,  in  experience  and  act,  the  holiness  of 
God  in  its  reaction  on  sin.  He  confessed  the 
holiness,  but  the  guilt  He  could  not  confess  in  the 
same  sense.  He  could  but  reahze  it,  bear  it,  as  only 
the  holy  could,  and  so  expose  it  in  all  its  sinfulness. 
The  revelation  of  love  is  a  revelation  no  less  of 
sin,  because  the  love  is  holy  love.  That  holy 
confession  in  act  of  the  injured  holiness,  amid  the 
conditions  of  sin  and  judgment,  was  the  satisfaction 
He  made  to  God.  And  the  necessity  for  it  lay  in 
God's  holy  name.  It  was  thus  that  He  offered  to 
God,  and  acted  on  God.  He  not  only  acted  from 
God  on  man,  but  from  man  on  God.  I  do  not 
mean  that  He  changed  God's  feeling  to  the  race. 
That  was  grace  always,  the  grace  that  sent  Him. 
But  He  did  change  the  relation  between  God 
and  man.  The  reconciliation  of  one  always  means 
a  great  change  for  both  parties.  He  made  com- 
munion possible  again  on  both  sides.  To  do  this 
He  had  to  bear  the  wrath,  the  judgment,  the 
privation  of  God.  He  could  not  otherwise  enact 
and  reveal    love,    and    do  the  revelation    justice. 


of  the  Cross  363 

The  more  love  there  is  in  a  holy  God,  the  more 
wrath.  Sin,  in  the  sinner  He  loves,  against  the 
law  of  His  own  nature,  which  He  loves  better  still, 
could  not  leave  Him  either  indifferent,  or  merely 
pitiful.  For  Love  would  then  desert  its  own 
holiness.  And  being  holy,  God's  concern  with  sin  is 
more  than  pity,  and  more  than  pain.  It  is  holiness 
in  earnest  reaction.  It  is  wrath  unto  judgment. 
That  wrath  Christ  felt,  not  indeed  as  personal 
resentment,  but  as  the  dark  valley,  as  the  horror 
of  thick  darkness.  And  He  felt,  moreover,  that 
it  was  God's  will  for  Him,  not  indeed  inflicted,  so 
far  as  His  conscience  was  concerned,  but  still  laid 
on  Him  by  God  through  His  sympathy  with  us. 
It  was  not  merely  a  darkening  of  His  vision  of  the 
Father  ;  it  was  desertion  by  the  Father  in  sympathy 
with  the  complete  fulfilment  of  their  common  task. 
As  one  might  in  certain  circumstances  say  "  I  love 
you,  but  I  must  leave  you,"  "  I  love  you,  but  for 
the  sake  of  aU  that  is  at  issue  I  may  not  show  it." 
And  it  was  by  recognizing,  honouring,  this  very 
desertion  as  the  wise,  righteous,  loving  wiU  of  God, 
that  Christ  converted  it  for  us  all  into  a  new  and 
deeper  communion.  It  was  thus  He  approved 
His  Godhead,  and  achieved  the  Redemption. 
The  real  Incarnation  lay  not  in  Christ's  being  made 
flesh  for  us,  but  in  His  being  made  sin.  And  the 
dereliction  was  the  real  descent  into  hell,  the 
bottoming  of  salvation.  Here  beneath  the  depth 
of  sin  is  the  deeper  depth  of  God.  "  If  I  make  My 
bed  in  hell,  Thou  art  there." 


364       The  Moral  Poignancy 

Love,  then,  must  go  to  entire  identification  (short  of 
absorption).  And  Christ,  in  identifying  Himself 
divinely  with  sinful  man,  had  to  take  the  sin's 
consequence,  and  especially  its  judgment,  else  the 
identification  would  not  be  complete,  and  the  love 
would  come  short.  He  must  somehow  identify 
Himself  in  a  sympathetic  way,  even  with  man's 
self-condemnation  which  is  the  reflection  of  his  judg- 
ment by  God.  I  need  hardly  allude  to  the  familiar 
illustrations  in  the  shame  which  innocent  people 
feel  through  the  crime  of  a  kinsman.  If  the  chief 
function  of  Christ's  love  was  to  represent  man  in  a 
solidary  way,  a  priestly  way.  He  must  make  offering 
to  God  ;  He  must  offer  to  God's  holiness  by  a  holy 
obedience,  and  not  merely  to  God's  love  by  loving 
response.  He  could  not  experience  sin,  for  then 
He  would  be  short  of  holy  identification  with  God  ; 
yet  He  must  experience  and  endure  God's  wrath 
against  sin,  else  His  love  would  be  short  of  sympa- 
thetic identification  with  us.  And  unless  he  felt 
God's  holy  wrath  and  reaction  against  sin,  He 
could  not  show  forgiving  love  in  full.  No  one 
can  forgive  in  full  who  does  not  feel  the  fullness  of 
the  offence.  To  feel  the  fullness  of  the  offence 
as  the  Holiest  must,  is  also  to  feel  the  wrath  the 
Holiest  feels.  But  for  one  in  perfect  S3mipathy 
with  man  to  feel  what  the  Holiest  feels  is  to  feel 
the  divine  wrath,  not  as  its  holy  subject  only,  but 
as  its  human  object.  Christ  could  not  show  the 
power  of  forgiving  love  in  full  unless  He  felt  the 
weight  of  God's  wrath  in  full,  i.e.  not  God's  temper 


of  the  Cross  365 

but  God's  judgment ;  which  for  Him  was  God's 
withdrawal,  the  experience  of  God's  total  negation 
of  the  sin  He  was  made.  Grace  could  only  be 
perfectly  revealed  in  an  act  of  judgment — though 
inflicted  on  Himself  by  the  Judge.  Atonement 
to  God  must  be  made,  and  it  was  only  possible 
from  God. 

No  one  can  feel  more  than  I  do  that  if  all  this  be 
not  absolute  truth  it  is  sheer  nonsense.  So  it  sifts  men. 

§ 
This  aspect  of  the  matter  is  not  indeed  vital  to 
personal  Christianity,  but  it  is  to  the  Church's 
total  message  and  to  the  final  prospects  of  Christ- 
ianity. It  presents  the  last  issue  in  the  moral 
war  of  God  and  man.  It  is  essential  to  a  fuU 
interpretation  of  God's  love.  God  so  loved  the 
world,  not  quantitatively  but  qualitatively,  not 
only  so  intensely,  but  in  such  a  unique  manner, 
that  He  gave  His  Son  to  be  a  propitiation.  It  is 
the  provision  of  a  propitiation  that  is  the  distinctive 
mark  of  God's  love  as  transcending  humane  pity 
or  affection  in  holy  grace.  Surely  it  must  be  so. 
The  greater  the  love  the  closer  it  must  come  to  life, 
and  to  the  interior  of  life.  It  can  the  less  ignore 
the  realities  of  life.  It  does  not  leave  us  to  our- 
selves, in  a  careless  affection  ;  it  enters  our  ways, 
and  sounds  our  depths,  and  measures  all  our 
tragic  case.  It  has  a  comprehending,  and  not 
merely  a  kindly  pity.  It  does  not  merely  feel  for 
our  case,  it  assumes  it  wholly.  Therefore,  it  must 
regard  the  last  reality  of  sin,  and  deal  with  it  accord- 


366       The  Moral  Poignancy 

ing  to  all  the  circumstances — especially  those 
visible  to  holiness  alone,  and  to  us  in  proportion 
as  we  are  redeemed  into  holiness.  So  dealing 
with  sin  it  forgives  it  ;  and  forgives  it  effectually — 
not  by  way  of  amnesty,  not  by  mere  pardon,  not 
by  way  of  mere  mercy  upon  our  repentance,  but 
by  the  radical  way  of  redemption  ;  not  by  indulg- 
ence, not  by  treating  it  as  a  matter  of  ignorance, 
weakness,  misfortune,  but  as  the  crime  of  our  free- 
dom, grave  in  proportion  to  our  freedom,  most 
heinous  in  the  face  of  the  grace  that  gives  our 
freedom.  And  as  grace  is  far  more  than  indulgence, 
so  sin  is  far  more  than  indifference.  It  is  the 
nature  of  indifference  to  go  on  to  become  hate,  if  it  be 
given  time  and  occasion.  The  mercy,  therefore,  comes 
as  no  matter  of  paternal  course,  as  no  calm  act  of 
a  parent  too  great  and  wise  to  be  wounded  by  a 
child's  ways.  God  is  fundamentally  affected  by  sin. 
He  is  stung  and  to  the  core.  It  does  not  simply 
try  Him.  It  challenges  His  whole  place  in  the 
moral  world.  It  puts  Him  on  His  trial  as  God. 
It  is,  in  its  nature,  an  assault  on  His  life.  Its 
total  object  is  to  unseat  Him.  It  has  no  part 
whatever  in  His  purpose.  It  hates  and  kills  Him. 
It  is  His  total  negation  and  death.  It  is  not  His 
other  but  An  other.  It  is  the  one  thing  in  the 
world  that  lies  outside  reconcihation,  whether  you 
mean  by  that  the  process  or  the  act.  It  cannot  be 
taken  up  into  the  supreme  unity.  It  can  only  be 
destroyed.  It  drives  Him  not  merely  to  action  but 
to  a  passion  of  action,  to  action  for  His  life,  to  action 


of  the  Cross  367 

in  suffering  unto  death.  And  what  makes  Him 
suffer  most  is  not  its  results  but  its  guilt.  It  has 
a  guilt  in  proportion  to  the  holy  love  it  scorns. 
The  greater  the  love  the  greater  the  guilt. 
And  the  closer  the  love  the  greater  the  reaction 
against  the  sin,  the  greater  the  wrath.  Hence 
the  problem  of  reconciliation — both  of  God  and 
man — a  problem  so  integral  to  Christianity,  and 
so  foreign  to  even  the  finest  kinds  of  theism.  It  is 
not  the  reconciliation  of  man  with  his  world,  the 
establishment  of  his  moral  personality  against  nature. 
That  were  mere  apologetic.  But  it  is  the  reconciliation 
of  man  within  himself  and  God.  The  channel  of  holy 
love  must  be  the  bearer,  the  victim  of  holy  wrath.  To 
bear  holy  love  to  us  He  must  bear  holy  wrath  for  us. 
The  forgiver  of  sin  must  realize  inwardly  the  whole 
moral  quality  of  the  guilt — as  Christ  did  in  His 
dereliction  in  the  Cross.  Inwardly  he  must  realize 
it,  experimentally,  not  intellectually.  No  otherwise 
could  a  God,  a  love,  be  revealed,  which  would 
not  let  us  go,  yet  was  in  absolute  moral  earnest 
about  the  holy. 

It  may  freely  be  granted  also  that  the  reconciliation 
of  God  (by  Himself  in  Christ)  is  not  very  exphcit 
in  the  New  Testament — for  the  same  reasons  which 
forbid  the  missionary  preaching  to  his  heathen  on 
such  a  theme.  The  New  Testament  represents  but  the 
missionary  stage  of  Christian  thought  and  action. 
But  the  idea  is  not  therefore  untrue.  If  not  explicit 
in  the  New  Testament,  it  is  integral  to  the  Gospel. 
It  is  involved  in  the  moral  quality  of  holy  forgiveness 


368       The  Moral  Poignancy 

and  in  its  divine  psychology.  In  this  respect  it  is 
like  the  full  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  and  many 
another.  The  holiness  of  God,  moreover,  does 
not  explicitly  occupy  the  same  supreme  position 
in  the  New  Testament  as  it  does  in  the  Old.  Yet  it 
is  the  very  Godhead  of  God.  It  is  the  essence  of 
Christ's  idea  of  God.  And  (  I  think  I  have  said)  it 
really  receives  in  the  New  Testament  a  position  above 
any  it  had  in  the  Old  Testament.  For  it  forms 
much  more  than  an  attribute  of  God.  In  the  Holy 
Spirit  it  becomes  a  constituent  element  in  the 
Godhead,  on  its  way  to  become  at  last  a  coequal 
person  in  the  Trinity. 

§ 

To  handle  this  matter  means  at  the  last  a  treatise. 
I  have  no  such  purpose.  I  wish  but  to  point  out  that 
the  expiatory  idea  of  Christianity  which  is  concerned 
with  the  notion  of  satisfaction,  is  quite  necessary  to 
do  justice  to  the  conception  of  God  as  love,  and  to 
the  closeness  of  His  identification  with  us.  It  is 
not  an  outgrown  notion,  a  relic  of  moral  immaturity, 
like  the  patristic  idea  of  Christ  cheating  Satan 
by  His  death,  or  even  the  Anselmic  satisfaction 
of  God's  honour.  I  have  sought  to  construe  the 
satisfaction  to  a  holy  God  as  consisting  only  in  a 
counterpart  and  equal  holiness  rendered  under  the 
conditions  of  sin  and  judgment.  And  especially  I 
have  wished  to  indicate  that  an  expiatory  atone- 
ment gives  expression,  by  its  searching  moral  real- 
ism, and  its  grasp  both  of  holiness  and  sin,  to  an 


of  the  Cross  369 

element  in  Christianity  which  has  a  crucial  effect 
on  the  depth,  wealth,  and  moral  penetration  of 
the  preaching  of  the  Gospel.  The  matter  is,  of 
course,  a  doctrine  of  the  Church,  and  not  a  test  of 
personal  Christianity.  It  is  not  a  Quicunque  vult. 
I  will  only  venture  to  say  I  never  knew  my  sin  so 
long  as  I  but  saw  Christ  suffering  for  me — never 
until  I  saw  Him  under  its  judgment  and  realized 
that  the  chastisement  of  my  peace  was  upon  Him. 

There  is  something  lacking  to  our  preaching,  by 
general  consent.  It  lacks  the  note,  the  energy  of 
spiritual  profundity  and  poignancy  as  distinct  from 
spiritual  sympathy,  and  of  moral  majesty  as  distinct 
from  ethical  interest.  And  I  am  convinced  that  this 
is  ultimately  due  to  the  loss  of  conviction  as  to  a 
real,  objective,  and  finished  redemption,  and  to 
the  disappearance  from  current  faith  of  a  real 
relation  to  the  holiness  and  the  wrath  of  God.  The 
note  of  judgment  has  gone  out  of  common  piety. 
It  is  not  here  a  question  of  either  denouncing  or 
unchurching  those  who  cannot  recognize  an  expiatory 
element  in  our  Salvation.  I  would  simply  express 
the  conviction  that  their  interpretation  of  the 
Cross  does  less  than  justice  to  the  Gospel,  and 
cannot  continue  to  carry  the  full  KijpvjfjLU  of 
the  Church.  It  has  not  the  promise  of  the  moral 
future  of  the  world.  It  is  not  sufficiently  charged 
with  repentance  and  remission.  It  does  not  break 
men  to  Christ,  but  only  train  them,  or  at  most 
bend  them.  And  it  does  not  embody  that  break 
with  the  world  which,  after  all,  has  been  a  leading 
note  in  all  the  great  victories  of  the  Cross. 

p.p.  24 


Epilogue 


Certain  things,  I  trust,  will  have  appeared  among 
others,  in  the  course  of  our  journey. 

1.  Preaching  to  the  Church  must  recognize  more 
fully  the  element  of  judgment,  and  preaching  to  the 
world  the  element  of  love.  Judgment  must  begin 
at  the  house  of  God.  We  must  preach  more  severely 
to  the  Church,  and  more  pitifully  to  the  world.  We 
must  make  the  demand  on  the  Church  heavier 
than  the  demand  on  the  world. 

2.  There  is  nothing  the  Church  needs  more 
profoundly,  though  there  are  many  things  it  needs 
more  loudly,  than  an  ethical  conversion  in  regard 
to  its  great  doctrines.  These  early  went  astray  in 
a  metaphysical  direction.  Metaphysic  we  must 
have,  but  even  to  this  day  the  whole  ethic  of 
the  Churches  suffers  incalculably  from  the  long 
prepossession  by  metaphysical  instead  of  moral 
interests,  by  pursuing  the  notion  of  substance  in- 
stead of  subject,  by  intellect  cultivated  at  the  cost 
of  conscience.  This  appears  in  the  interminable, 
and  often  barren,  strifes  about  the  nature  of 
Christ  in  the  Church's  early  stage,  and  of  the 
sacrament  in  the  later.     And  in  inverse  proportion 

371 


3  7  2  Epilogue 

to  the  engrossment  of  ability  with  these  insoluble 
problems  (or  rather  with  their  pursuit  on  insoluble 
lines)  has  been  the  moral  insight  and  energy  of 
the  Church,  especially  on  the  public  scale.  So 
that  its  idea  of  justice  has  become  a  by- word. 
Ecclesiastical  justice  is  sport  for  the  Philistines. 
The  justice  of  a  church  court  or  of  ecclesiastical 
politicians  is  a  matter  of  mockery.  In  the  great 
churches — the  Catholic,  Orthodox,  or  Established — 
men  of  personal  honour  and  uprightness  lose  the 
sense  of  social  justice  as  soon  as  a  question  arises 
which  threatens  the  interest  of  their  Church.  They 
are  perfectly  sincere,  and  equally  incapable  of 
grasping  the  just  thing.  It  is  a  hereditary  or 
'  miasmatic '  paralysis,  and  not  a  personal  vice. 
Something  is  very  wrong  in  some  vital  place. 
And  the  deep  root  of  it  all  lies  in  the  Church's 
long  moral  neglect  of  the  great  justification  by  God. 
The  mighty  moral  meaning  there,  original  to  itself 
and  imperial  for  all  else,  has  been  submerged, 
where  it  should  have  been  elucidated,  by  the 
maxims  of  human  instincts,  utilities,  and  codes. 
The  intellectualism  of  the  Church,  and  the  counter- 
intellectualism  of  its  critics,  have  sucked  the  sap 
and  vigour  from  its  ethic.  Its  conscience  has  not 
been  educated  at  its  Cross.  Its  eye,  from  peering 
into  inaccessible  heavens,  has  seen  the  moral  values 
upon  earth  only  through  great  flakes  of  darkness. 
HoHness  has  become  mere  sanctity,  and  righteous- 
ness but  justice  which  is  less  equity  than  legal- 
ity. 


Epilog 


ue  373 

So  that  the  very  institution  which  was  founded 
upon  God's  supreme  act  of  pubHc  justice — the 
Church — has  become  the  dullest  to  public  justice  of 
any  institution,  and  as  selfish  as  any  association  for 
the  defence  of  a  trade,  a  monopoly,  or  an  ascend- 
ancy. From  the  point  of  view  of  Christian  ethic 
there  is  no  word  more  base-bom  than  that  word 
ascendancy. 

3.  The  more  ethically  we  construe  the  Gospel 
the  more  are  we  driven  upon  the  holiness  of  God. 
And  the  deeper  we  enter  that  sacred  ground  the 
more  we  are  seized  by  the  necessity  (for  the  very 
maintenance  of  our  spiritual  life)  of  a  real  and 
objective  atonement  offered  to  a  holy  God  by  the 
equal  and  satisfying  holiness  of  Christ  under  the 
conditions  of  sin  and  judgment. 

4.  We  must  be  critically  liberal  without  ceasing 
to  be  theological.  We  must  be  free  in  our  treat- 
ment of  history,  whether  as  doctrine  or  as  Bible. 
But  we  must  be  firm  on  our  faith's  base  in  history. 
However  we  treat  the  Bible  we  must  be  positive  in 
our  treatment  of  the  Bible's  Gospel.  We  must  re- 
duce demand  as  to  the  Bible,  and  press  it  as  to  the 
Gospel.  That  way  lies  the  future.  That  method 
meets  the  actual  present  situation.  A  mere  abstract 
liberalism  without  content  or  responsibility, 
liberty  to  go  anywhere  and  believe  anything,  is 
pseudoliberalism.  What  makes  us  free  at  the 
last  ?  For  what  are  we  made  free  ?  Not  for 
certain  views  broad  or  narrow.  But  for  the  faith 
of  a  positive  Gospel,  understood  as  I  have  defined 


3  74  Epilogue 

it,  modified,  perhaps,  but  certainly  unchanged. 
Liberty  of  view  is  now  assured.  What  is  not  secure 
is  liberty  of  soul.  And  the  only  thing  that  can  secure 
it  is  the  faith  of  a  positive  Gospel.  Liberty  of  view  is 
a  matter  of  mere  science.  It  is  rehgious  liberty  that 
concerns  the  pubhc  most.  And  that  is  only  the  fruit 
of  the  Gospel. 

Nothing  in  the  world  is  so  precious  as  faith,  hope 
and  love.  But  the  preacher  of  the  Gospel  must  be 
sure  on  what  abysses  these  rest  and  abide. 


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